from Arab News War Correspondent in Najaf, Iraq; filed 2 pm GMT; April 10: Former Iraqi general Nizar Al-Khazaraji and Islamic scholar Majid Al-Khoi’i have both been executed by Iraqi residents of Najaf, according to five independent Iraqi witnesses to the incident who spoke to Arab News. The two potential Iraqi leaders of the city, who were supported by the US, “were chopped into pieces with swords and knives inside the Ali Mosque this morning by Iraqis who accused them of being American stooges,” one of the witnesses said. Another said that a US Special Forces Soldier, who had been acting as their body guard, was also killed in the incident. Al-Khoi'i's death has since been confirmed by his family in London. However, there has been no independent confirmation of Al-Khazarji's death. Arab News War Correspondent Essam Al-Ghalib says from Najaf that he can confirm only that local Iraqis were talking about the death of Al-Khazarji, not that the man had actually been killed.
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24989

I hope that this is not a taste of things to come...

That is SO misleading.

One was a former member of Sadams brutal Ba'ath party.

The other was a peaceful spiritual man.

Having said they were cut up by a party that they have a long history of bad blood.

The way that article makes it sound is they got killed for supporting America. This is just typical "clan" mentality. We can expect different clans clashing for a bit.

No "clan" is going to want another to be the leader. Some smart thinking will have to take place that is inclusive. Other wise there will be this type of act. Especially when some feel they FINALLY got from under the bootheel.
A lot of pent up anger

[ 04-10-2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Mordenheim ]

I had seen little on the incident...so little that all I was aware of is that "2 clerics were hacked to death by a mob in Najaf". From what I understood, it was the clerics in Najaf who were helping U.S. troops maintain some level of peace in that city.

This incident clearly marks a potential for things to get much uglier there before they ever get better. Sad considering it has been portrayed as "the holiest city in Iraq" due to the religious significance of the mosque there.

Clan clashes, anti-american or not...that's just downright ugly!

Skunk, you should know better than to use Arab news as a source of fact! ;)

[ 04-10-2003, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Lil Lil ]

Actually I just got more detail

It was a peace meeting. The peaceful guy ended up trying to defend the former Ba'ath party religious leader. They both ended up getting hacked. So much for that game plan.

I can see a lot of people wanting blood. I mean decades of abuse. We can not expect them to just shake hands and be friends. Not going to happen. Going to take some serious care and attention

Thank you Mordenheim. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah I see the "former" Ba'ath party members getting no quarter after what the people have gone through. They should know not to ask for it imo.

The former general Al-Kazarji was also former Iraqi chief-of-staff during the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja. Until recently he was in Denmark on 'endured stay' after fleeing Iraq after falling out with SH. He was in house-arrest - while charges of crimes against humanity was being investigated. He dissapeared a few weeks back - (and I stress) allegedly with the help of the CIA, who wanted to use him and his contacts in the Iraqi military to help the war-effort.

I think you are missing the point. The murder of al-Khoei was the important thing here:

Times Newspaper:

"Arguably the most tragic and potentially explosive incident occurred in the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, which American forces captured a week ago. Abdul Majid al-Khoei, 42, a friend of Tony Blair’s with close links to Washington, was hacked to pieces at the ornate Grand Imam Ali mosque as he attempted to defuse a stand-off between rival Shia groups.

His death was a serious blow to American and British efforts to impose order and encourage a new leadership in post-Saddam Iraq. It also raised the spectre of sectarian violence among the country’s majority Shia Muslims, who for the first time in Iraq’s history have the opportunity of assuming power.

Witnesses said that Mr al-Khoei was killed with knives and swords by followers of a rival group inside the gold-domed shrine after he tried to defend himself with a pistol.

The killing was condemned last night by the White House and Downing Street, who had hoped that the cleric could emerge as a key pro-Western figure in Iraq’s future leadership. The Prime Minister, who met Mr al-Khoei on several occasions, said that he was “saddened and appalled” by what he called the “assassination”. “He was a religious leader who embodied hope and reconciliation and who was committed to building a better future for the people of Iraq,” Mr Blair said. “I would like to express my sincere condolences to the family of Abdul Majid al-Khoei and to the al-Khoei Foundation.”

The killing underlined the anarchy which has spread in areas captured by US and British forces. It also threatened to trigger more infighting among Iraq’s majority Shia population, traditionally the country’s poorest and most militant population.

Mr al-Khoei, the son of Iraq’s late Shia spiritual leader Ayatollah Sayyid Abul-Qasim al-Khoei, fled the country in 1991 when his father was involved in the failed Shia uprising against Saddam.

He lived in exile in North London working for the al-Khoei Foundation, a leading Muslim charitable organisation.

Over the past year, however, Mr al-Khoei was courted by Washington and London and was involved in preparations for postwar Iraq. After US forces captured Najaf, he returned to the city, which is the spiritual home of Shia Muslims. Iraqi opposition sources said that Mr al-Khoei was trying to end a potentially explosive stand-off inside the mosque, which is built over the tomb of Imam Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law and the founder of Shia Islam.

He was trying to negotiate safe passage for Haider al-Kadar, a hated religious official who worked for Saddam’s regime. When the two men appeared together they weregreeted with abuse by followers of Mohammed Braga al-Saddar, another Shia religious leader.

“Al-Khoei tried to protect Saddam’s man but they were both killed by the mob,” said one opposition member in Iraq. “He was hacked to death.”

Although the killing was portrayed as an accident, there were suspicions last night that his death was politically motivated. He also had rivals in the Shia community.
Print this article Send to a friend Back to top of page

****That is the key sentence here.*****

And an additional article to chew on:
About 200 Iraqis ransacked their embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran today, smashing furniture, windows and photographs of Saddam Hussein and yelling "Death to America".
"No Saddam! No US puppet regime! We want freedom!" the exiles chanted as they stormed through the embassy, breaking almost everything in sight.

About 40 minutes after the crowd broke in, police reinforcements arrived and sealed the embassy compound in Val-i-Asr Street, in the north of the city. More than 20 police officers prevented the Iraqis from leaving the embassy, and confiscated documents - the only moveable items left in the embassy apart from the diplomatic cars.

The police also closed the surrounding streets to help bring the situation under control.

"We are destroying some properties at the embassy because they represent evil," said one of the looters, Adibeh Tabrizi. "We will take care of the building and we will not damage it, but we are destroying any sign of the criminal regime."

Another Iraqi, Rana Ashia, had tears in her eyes as she ripped up pictures of Saddam inside the embassy.

"Two of my brothers have been in Iraqi jails for 23 years. Today is the biggest victory of the century for us, to see the criminal Saddam Hussein and his regime collapsing," she said.

Police said no Iraqi diplomats had been in the building when the exiles arrived and overwhelmed the Iranian guards outside.

At other Iraqi embassies, diplomats have been seen burning documents since Wednesday, when it became clear that Saddam had lost control of Baghdad. Iraqi diplomats have been accused in the past of gathering intelligence on Iraqi citizens living abroad, and even plotting attacks on Iraqi dissidents.

About 60 members of an Iraqi opposition group took over the Iraqi interests section at the Jordanian embassy in London on Wednesday. Scotland Yard said the demonstrators were quickly cleared from the building, and police arrested two dozen people for offences including criminal damage.

About 200,000 Iraqis live in Iran, many of them Shia Muslims who fled after a failed Shia uprising against Saddam in 1991. Tens of thousands of the Iraqi exiles live in Tehran.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story...934667,00.html

The majority of Iraqis are happy that Saddam's regime has ceased to funtion in any meaningful way. But that doesn't mean that they want McDonalds to open a restaurant in downtown Bagdad...

That's good news! [img]smile.gif[/img]

As disappointing as the death of the clerics is, I doubt if everyone never expected some infighting in the efforts to developing a new government in Iraq.

I would expect that more of the locally unfavorable choices that the U.S. & the UK have made may meet the same end. Neither one of them seem to have a sense of "what is good for the people of Iraq" without it involving criminals and people despised "on the inside" for their past deeds.

A decent indepth analysis of the upcoming problems with installing 'hand-picked' figureheads can be found here:

What Lurks in the Ruins?