NAJAF, Iraq, 26 August 2003 — Thousands gathered here yesterday at the mausoleum of the son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) for the funerals of three men killed a day earlier in an assassination attempt on one of Iraq’s top Shiite clerics. “This criminal act was carried out by members of the old regime, by ignorant, misguided people who do not want this city to enjoy security,” said Ammar Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, the son of a senior Shiite figure on Iraq’s US-appointed governing council. “We declare that the coalition forces are entirely responsible for what has happened because they are using tanks to try to bring peace,” he said in a funeral oration.
Two of the three men killed were bodyguards of Grand Ayatollah Seyed Mohammed Said Al-Hakim, and the third was a cleric, according to the ayatollah’s spokesman, Abdul Hussein Al-Kadi, who said at least six other people were wounded in Sunday’s bomb attack. The three men died when unknown attackers blew up a gas cylinder outside Ayatollah Hakim’s house in this holy city, 180 km south of Baghdad.
“Death to those who committed this act,” said a large banner held up by mourners. The three coffins were placed outside the mausoleum before being carried back to the house where they were killed for a prayer service and then to the city’s graveyard for burial. Ayatollah Hakim is one of the four top clerics in the Hawza, the highest religious authority of Iraq’s Shiite community.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of neighboring Iran, yesterday condemned the assassination attempt as a plot against Islam and Shiites.
Hakim had in recent weeks told AFP that he had received several death threats but would not say from whom. His spokesman said the attack may have been sparked by the Hawza’s policy of cooperation with Iraq’s US-led administration.
In other developments: US forces based in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit said yesterday they had captured two senior members of the former Iraqi leader’s Fedayeen militia. They were captured overnight in separate operations. “They were organizers of Fedayeen cells at a regional level,” the statement said.
It said five other Iraqis were detained across three provinces, three of whom were suspected of carrying out attacks against American soldiers.
Lt. Col. William MacDonald told Reuters there was also an explosion yesterday in the town of Samarra, about 100 km north of Baghdad, but it was not clear what caused it or whether there were casualties.
• An Islamist Internet site issued a statement yesterday by a group close to Al-Qaeda network which claimed to have carried out last week’s devastating truck bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad. In the statement, which could not be authenticated, the Brigades of Martyr Abu Hafs Al-Masri wrote: “The attack in Iraq was a lesson for the United States,” calling the United Nations “a branch of the US State Department.”
• Iraq has postponed to next April a trade fair aimed at attracting foreign companies to help rebuild the country, a senior official said in Baghdad yesterday. Fakhridin Rashan, a US-appointed trade ministry official, said the fair had been postponed from Dec. 1 because some hotels were now being used by the US military.
• Jordan said yesterday it was ready to work with Iraq’s US-backed interim governing council to set up a representative national government in Baghdad but denied its request for formal recognition. Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher made Jordan’s position clear following a meeting in Amman between Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb and a visiting delegation representing the 25-member governing council.
