KUWAIT, 13 April 2003 — Senior Iraqi Shiite leaders said yesterday that a radical Muslim group led by an ambitious young rival orchestrated the killing of cleric Abdul Majid Al-Khoei in Najaf this week. Khoei was hacked to death by a mob at Imam Ali Shrine, the holiest Shiite site, days after he returned from exile in London to help Iraq make the transition to democracy.
Iraqi Shiite leaders said Jimaat-e-Sadr-Thani, a splinter group led by Moqtada Sadr, the 22-year-old son of a late spiritual leader in Iraq, carried out Thursday’s attack which left Khoei and another cleric dead. “The attackers started shouting and swearing, and said ‘Long live Moqtada’, ‘Death to Majid Khoei’. They had guns, knives, axes — everything,” a man who said he was an aide to Khoei and was with him during the attack told Reuters.
Confusion and looting has reigned in many Iraqi cities as President Saddam Hussein’s iron rule collapsed in the face of a US and British invasion launched on March 20. Khoei’s aide would only give his name as Fayad, said he was in hiding and that the mob wanted to take the people with Khoei to Moqtada’s house and imprison them after the attack.
“Mobs kill anyone they like, rob anyone they like. It’s a very chaotic situation,” he said. Friends and relatives say Khoei was the victim of a power struggle among Shiite groups for control of Najaf, a key center of Shiite pilgrimage and religious learning which contains the tomb of Imam Ali.
“Khoei was very well connected and resourceful, and from a respectable family. His presence would have tilted the balance of power in Najaf. Many people felt threatened by him,” said Muhammad Baqir Mohri, a Shiite cleric and scholar.
