Lay Shias blame rival militant for bomb blast

IRAQ: While Iraqi Shia clerics blamed supporters of the ousted Baathist regime for  Sunday's bomb blast at the Najaf home of Ayatollah Muhammad Saeed Hakim, laymen marching in the funeral procession of the three men killed in the attack said followers of a Shia rabble-rouser were responsible.

Sayyed Muqtada Sadr, the young militant, is the son of one of the Shias' most revered clerics, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Sadr, who was assassinated in 1999 by President Saddam Hussein's intelligence agents. Another highly respected relative, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr Sadr, was killed in 1981.

Sayyed Muqtada's movement, the Army of the Mahdi, is based in Najaf at the Office of the Two Martyrs, a designation chosen to capitalise on the high regard most Shias feel for their murdered spiritual leaders.

So far this "army," which has recruited tens of thousands of volunteers, remains unarmed. It is, however, a powerful means of drawing men into cadres who are engaged in social and religious work in the vast Shia slum quarter of Baghdad and in the southern cities.

Since the fall of Baghdad last April, Sayyed Muqtada, whose age is given as 29-35, has adopted a very strong anti-US and anti-occupation line, while the Hawza, the assemblage of senior clerics based at Najaf, to which Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Saeed Hakim belongs, has adopted a more conciliatory wait-and-see line towards Washington.

Followers of Sayyed Muqtada are widely blamed for the murder of a cleric with close ties to the Anglo-US occupation regime, Mr Abdel Majid Khoei, at the mosque in Najaf in April soon after he returned to Iraq from exile in London.

The "Sadrists" also laid siege to the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior cleric in the Hawza who has been instrumental in its adoption of a moderate line.

A three-way split in the Shia leadership opened up in July when the US chief administrator in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, named a 25-member Interim Governing Council, which included representatives from all the main Shia factions except the Sadrists.

Sayyed Muqtada accused them of co-operating with the occupation regime while the Hawza distanced itself from the council by means of a fatwa, or religious ruling, issued by Ayatollah Sistani. He said Iraq should be governed by an executive body elected by its citizens.

"The \ authorities are not entitled to name the members of the assembly charged with drafting the constitution. There is no guarantee that such an assembly will draft a constitution upholding the \ people's interests and expressing \ national identity, founded on Islam and lofty social values," he said.

The Shia figures who ignored the fatwa and joined the council have taken an active part in its deliberations.

The current chairman is Mr Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa party while the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which initially refused to join, is also represented.

By dismissing the fatwa, these groups have demonstrated a certain independence of the Hawza and defied the Sadrists. This is the most likely reason for a Sadrist attack on Grand Aytollah Hakim, who is related to the spiritual mentor of SCIRI, Muhammad Baqi Hakim, whose brother is the movement's council member.

Recently the Sadrists were given a political boost when a populist Sunni cleric, Shaikh Ahmad Kubeisi, expressed his support for their cause and is said to have provided financial backing. The connection is seen as the first sign of co-ordination between the former Sunni ruling minority and the Shia majority.