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Iraq leaders call for
calm after Shi'ite slaughter
By Luke Baker
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
Wed Mar 3, 2004 01:07 PM ET
Ayatollah Hadi al-Muddaresi, one of Iraq's foremost
Shi'ite clerics, said the bombings were an attempt by Sunni extremists to
foment civil war in Iraq, where the 60 percent Shi'ite majority were for
decades suppressed under Saddam, a Sunni.
There are parties and groups that are willing to push Iraq towards civil
war, but I don't think it will happen because the first people who will lose
will be those who are pushing for it," the cleric told Reuters in his
offices in Kerbala.
"We as Shi'ites refuse to be drawn into such a conflict."
Link to original story:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4485997
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Thousands join
funeral procession of Karbala bombing victims
KARBALA, Iraq (AFP) - Clerics warned against civil
war as thousands of Iraqi Shiites flooded the holy shrines of Karbala for
the mass funeral of the 98 people killed in a bombing rampage on the Muslim
group's most sacred day.
Sayed Hadi al-Mudaresi also lashed out at those who would spark sectarian
and communal strife in Iraq between the country's 60 percent Shiite majority
and the Sunnis who ruled Iraq under Saddam and now fear for their status.
"This attack is against Islam and all the prophets and against Hussein,"
said Mudaresi.
"These people who plotted this attack wish to return to the past to fight
Imam Hussein, but we will not follow them because they want a civil war. We
want the other side (the Sunnis) to condemn these type of attacks."
"We want all parties and organisations in Iraq to condemn these kinds of
attacks. Those who will not do so we will regard as a partner in these kind
of attacks."
Thursday's funeral procession, with banners displaying faces of the
leading Shiite clerics in Iraq, was mainly controlled by Shiite militias,
toting automatic rifles, while police were almost totally absent.
Link to original story:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/2004030...
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Vast Crowds Mourn Karbala
Dead After Iraq Blasts - Prayers
By Luke Baker
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
Wed Mar 3, 2004 10:45 AM ET
KARBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims marched
through the streets of the sacred Iraqi city of Karbala Wednesday to pay
their last respects to the 115 people killed in a wave of devastating
bombings there.
Chanting "God is Greatest," they carried around a dozen coffins through the
streets, some laden with flowers, others draped in rugs with verses from the
Koran, as black-clad musicians clashed cymbals, banged drums and blew horns.
The funeral procession, led by Karbala's senior clerics, made its way
through the heart of the city toward the mosque of Imam Hussein, one of
Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, where the bodies were taken inside and the
mass of mourners said prayers.
Crowds gathered to watch the procession along the streets and from
balconies, shouting "Hussein! Hussein!," invoking the name of a revered
Shi'ite martyr, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, killed more than 13
centuries ago.
In a sermon at the mosque, a leading Karbala cleric
urged the crowds not to seek vengeance for the death and destruction meted
out in the blasts, which struck as some two million pilgrims gathered to
mark their holiest day.
"Those who did this want a civil war in Iraq, but we will not be drawn into
it," said Ayatollah Hadi al-Muddaresi.
"This act against us was an aggression against all Muslims."
Link to original story:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4488944
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