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Rafsanjani compares Sistani's return to Khomeini's
A top Iranian cleric on Friday likened Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's return to Iraq to end the stand-off in Najaf with the 1979 home-coming of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which swept aside the US-backed shah. Influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers at Tehran University both cases showed Islam's "great power". "Sistani's brave return to Najaf which ended the crisis is similar to our leader's return to Iran which ended the shah's rule," Rafsanjani said. Sistani, Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, returned from Britain to be swept into the battered city of Najaf by thousands of followers and on Thursday persuaded radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia to leave a shrine and end a three-week uprising that has killed hundreds. "The heroic young people's 21 days of resistance with their bare hands and Sistani's political measures to end the crisis, both are popular and show the power of Islam's devotees." In remarks broadcast live on state radio, Rafsanjani accused the United States of igniting the uprising in Najaf. "It was widely pre-planned by Americans who wanted to intimidate their enemies," he said. "But it gave the opposite result. They failed and suffered." Sadr met Rafsanjani in Iran last year at a memorial service for Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic. Shi'ite Muslim Iran opposed the war that toppled Saddam Hussein, despite its hatred of the former Iraqi leader, and has been incensed by US attacks on Shi'ite militia in Najaf. Rafsanjani said the actions of the US military in Iraq would feed Muslim hatred against the United States and called on Washington to adopt "peaceful and rational methods". "By adopting rational methods there will be no more al Qaeda, Taliban, explosions or September 11 attacks," he said. "Your irrational and oppressive measures, naturally outrages some people who strongly confront you," Rafsanjani said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-08-28 |
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