The Hindu : Front Page : Top Iraqi official killed, cleric attacked

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 17, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

Top Iraqi official killed, cleric attacked

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, DEC.16. At least two assassination attempts, one of them successful, and a sharp verbal attack on Iran have marked the beginning of Iraq's election campaign which began yesterday.

Armed militants killed a senior official in Iraq's Communication Ministry as he was driving to his office in central Baghdad. Kassim Imhawi was hit by gunmen who pulled up beside him at the outskirts of the city. Mr. Imhawi was Director-General of the Ministry and a senior adviser to the interim Iraqi Government.

In a failed assassination bid, a bomb wounded a high profile Shia cleric and killed seven people in Karbala, outside one of southern Iraq's holiest shrines. Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee, a representative of Iraq's top Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, was injured when the bomb exploded outside the western gate of Karbala's Imam Hussein shrine. Thirty-one people were wounded in yesterday's incident. A spokesman for Ayatollah Sistani saw the attack as an attempt to sow dissensions between Iraq's majority Shia and minority Sunni communities.

"Targeting him (Sheikh Al-Karbalayee) is part of a series of attempts to create sectarian strife in Iraq by targeting the Shia symbols," said United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) candidate, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer. Militants want to provoke Shias into reacting "so that the political process would collapse," he said. Unlike a majority of the Sunni groups, the Shias support the January 30 elections, which could bring them to power for the first time.

`Iran is chief enemy'

As Shias make a concerted bid to win the polls, Iraq's interim Defence Minister, Hazem Shaalan, has attacked neighbouring Iran, which has a majority Shia population, of meddling in Iraq. Mr. Shaalan described Iran as "No. 1 enemy."

"They are fighting us because we want to build freedom and democracy and they want to build an Islamic dictatorship and have turbaned clerics to rule in Iraq," he said. Mr. Shaalan also sharply criticised the United Iraqi Alliance, loyal to Ayatollah Sistani for links to Iran, and described nuclear physicist Hussain al-Shahristani as the "leader of an Iranian list." Mr. Sharistani played a leading role in forging the UIA, which is fielding 228 candidates for the 275 member Iraqi assembly. The interim Defence Minister also accused Iran and Syria of cooperating with loyalists of former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein.

In a related development, there was no let up in the U.S. bombardment of Falluja, with American warplanes dropping nine bombs at alleged guerilla hideouts.

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