Guerrillas kill leading Shi'ite cleric in Iraq
Fri Jul 1, 2005
By Peter Graff
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen assassinated a leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric as he drove to his central Baghdad mosque for prayers on Friday, one of three attacks targeting prominent Shi'ites in the capital within 24 hours.
Sectarian violence has worsened since a Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took power two months ago, with guerrillas from the Sunni Arab minority attacking Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's administration and its U.S. allies.
The gunmen made off after killing Kamal al-Din al-Ghoureify, a representative in Baghdad for Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who is recognised as spiritual leader by many of Iraq's Shi'ite majority. Sunni Arabs held sway in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Police said two of the cleric's aides were wounded, but officials in Sistani's office said the pair were killed.
A suicide car bomber killed a bystander on Friday at a house in Baghdad used as an office by Jaafari, a Shi'ite.
Overnight, an uncle and a cousin of another prominent Shi'ite politician, national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, were shot dead in their shop in Baghdad with four other people, police and officials said.
IMPATIENCE
The United States is trying to draw Sunni Arabs into the political process in the hope of ending the insurgency, but some Shi'ite leaders have shown impatience with these efforts.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this week American officials had often met insurgents, although he later said such meetings did not involve senior figures and were only part of ordinary efforts to reach out to communities.
In the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf in the south, a senior Shi'ite cleric and politician accused the United States of "encouraging terrorism" by negotiating with insurgents and slowing down the war crimes trial of Saddam.
"We believe that foot-dragging in trying Saddam and his aides, and opening dialogue with terrorists, is like giving a green light to terrorists to come back to this country," Sadr al-Din al-Qubanghi, Najaf head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told worshippers at Friday prayers.
"America is interfering in Iraq's affairs and Iraqis reject that," he said.
A U.S. official in Baghdad, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said he could understand why reports of U.S. contacts with insurgents might have annoyed Shi'ite leaders.
He said Sunni figures claiming to represent insurgent groups had made a number of approaches, but denied U.S. diplomats had negotiated with gunmen.
"Our policy is we don't negotiate with insurgents," he said. "We do not talk to people who have killed or who have provided material assistance."
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad, and Khaled Farhan in Najaf)
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