BAGHDAD, 7 February 2004 — A spokesman for Iraq’s influential Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani denied yesterday reports of an attempted assassination on the scholar a day earlier, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network reported.
In an interview with the broadcaster, Hamid Chaffaf said: “There was no assassination attempt on Sistani.”
He confirmed, security at Sistani’s secluded house in the holy city of Najaf, about 160 kilometers south of Baghdad, had been tightened in the past two weeks. But, he added, “I vehemently reject any reports of an assassination attempt on Sistani.”
Several media had reported on Thursday that unknown attackers had opened fire on Sistani while he was traveling in his vehicle injuring several of his bodyguards. Some members of the interim Iraqi Governing Council, who are in close contact with Sistani, also rejected the reported attack.
Al-Sistani has demanded that the first free elections in Iraq be held before June 30 when the US occupying force is set to transfer power to an Iraqi government.
A United Nations team of election experts was due to arrive yesterday in Baghdad to determine the feasibility of holding elections before that date.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered the mission after the US-led coalition failed to broker a compromise deal over its tight timetable for handing self-rule to a transitional assembly selected by provincial caucuses.
The country’s majority Shiites, long repressed under Saddam, want direct elections to properly reflect their demographic weight and they want them before the US-led coalition’s planned return of sovereignty to Iraq. Those demands, championed by Sistani, have so far been rejected by the coalition as impractical.
The UN team, in the first full-scale mission to Iraq since international staff were evacuated after a deadly bombing last year, is expected to stay for about 10 days.
In conjunction with its visit, The Washington Post reported yesterday that the US plan for handing sovereignty back to Iraq is increasingly likely to undergo a major change and may even be rolled back until early 2005.
The newspaper, quoting US officials, said members of the Bush administration have been crafting dramatic “new ideas” in a bid to bring a smooth end to the occupation.
“The Bush administration still publicly clings to its transition plan, but a UN team scheduled to arrive in Iraq ... has been given a free hand to present its own blueprint for the country’s political transition if it determines elections cannot be held by June in Iraq,” the Post said.
