Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
Shia leaders caution against revenge attacks
By Atul Aneja
MANAMA, DEC. 20. Shia leaders in Iraq have urged their supporters to avoid revenge attacks following two deadly car bombings in Najaf and Karbala, which killed at least 61 people and wounded 120.
The leaders saw the attacks as part of a plot to disrupt next month's elections, by generating a sectarian conflict. Shias, who comprise 60 per cent of Iraq's population, support the polls. On the contrary, a majority of Sunnis oppose the upcoming January 30 elections.
'No to violence'
The Shia leader, Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum, said Shias were committed to peaceful participation in next month's election. "The Shias are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence. We are determined on elections," he said. A spokesman for the movement led by the Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, said a civil war would be 'hell'.
One of Najaf's leading Shia clerics, Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Hakim, also denounced the bombings. He said they aimed to "incite sectarian sedition." A car bomb in Najaf yesterday killed 48 people and injured 90. Thirteen persons died and 30 were wounded in a similar attack in Karbala.
Meanwhile, the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, has appealed to Iraqis from his prison cell to unite against what he called were U.S. efforts to sow sectarian divisions, his lawyers said.
Saddam alleges plot
Ziad Khasawneh, a Jordanian lawyer and spokesman for Mr. Hussein's defence team, said on Sunday, "President Saddam Hussein urged the unity of his Iraqi people, regardless of their religious and ethnic creed, to confront U.S. plans to divide their country on sectarian grounds." Mr. Hussein conveyed his message through Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi lawyer and member of the defence team that met him for more than four hours on Thursday.
AP reports:
Bushra Khalil, a Lebanese member of the defence team said, "The President sent recommendations to the Iraqi people to remain united and not fall in the trap of America's slogans. He said Kurds, Arabs, Shias, Sunnis and Christians are all Iraqis who all have to stand united against the American plot.''
Mr. Dulaimi said he was taken to the meeting in an armoured vehicle with darkened windows and did not know where in Baghdad he was being held.
The meeting took place in the presence of an American military official. He told the other lawyers that Mr. Hussein had no news of Iraq or the outside world before the meeting.
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