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Iraq: Some of the players
Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani, arguably Iraqâs most revered Shiite spiritual leader, gave an interview to the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat on April 18 through his son. Sistaniâs son spoke of âserious dangers that are directed at the religious figures, and even ⊠Sayyed al-Sistani.â Georgetown University Middle East scholar Daniel Brumberg, who provided a translation of the interview for the Columbia University Gulf2000 website, interprets this not as opposition to the US, but to other Shiites who are trying to usurp Sistaniâs authority.One of those Shiite rivals is Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the few surviving descendants of Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Sadr, who was executed on Saddam Husseinâs orders in 1980. Muqtada al-Sadr is only 22, but is a firebrand. Reporter Lara Marlowe of The Ireland Times quotes one Shiite in Baghdad: âThe young people in Najaf follow Muqtada, but the older ayatollahs say he doesnât have enough knowledge.â Because Muqtada is not yet an ayatollah, one can see why Ayatollah Sistani would decry his attempts at leadership. US troops arrested one of Sadrâs lieutenants, Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi, and two other clerics at a Baghdad checkpoint when they gathered a huge crowd of Shiites in Baghdad to denounce the United States at Friday prayers. Fartusi said in his sermon that the US could not impose a formal âdemocracyâ on Iraq that allowed freedom of individual speech but denied Iraqis the ability to shape their own government. Fartusiâs arrest provoked a big demonstration of 5,000 Shiites in front of the Palestine Hotel. Other pretenders to leadership seem doubtful, but if some hang in long enough, they may just insinuate themselves into some permanent job. An example is Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, an Iraqi dissident who used to live in Iran. According to Al-Jazeera TV a representative of the âFree Iraqi Officers,â Jowdat al-Abidi, announced that choosing Zubaidi for occupying the sensitive post was done after making heavy consultations with âprominent personalities residing in Baghdad.â Zubaidiâs new office was announced through IRNA, the Iranian National News Agency. Zubaidiâs Iranian residence raises suspicions that he may be a stalking horse for Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the founder of the Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI) in 1982. Hakim comes from a respected Shiite clerical lineage. He lives in Iran, has many followers in both Iran and Iraq, and is worrisome to the Bush administration. Zubaidi was arrested by the US earlier this week, though. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-05-01 |
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