A popular Iraqi Sunni leader dismissed a press report claiming his grass-roots and financial support to an anti-American Shiite scholar in a rare cooperation across Iraqâs sectarian divide. âIt is ludicrous â and even outlandish â to talk about any of such a cooperation with Moqtada Al-Sadr,â Ahmed Kubeisi told IslamOnline.net of the Washington Post report published last week. Kubeisi, a prominent scholar from a major clan in western Iraq, decried that Arab newspapers published the report and âwere dragged on to these lies which could by no means be believableâ. The report claimed that ties mark one of the first signs of coordination between anti-occupation elements of the Sunni minority, the traditional rulers of the country, and its Shiite majority, seen by U.S. officials as the key to stability in post-invasion Iraq.
| Moqtada represents the nutbag-bully boy wing of the Shiites... |
Kubeisi also rejected the reportâs claim that the extent of his cooperation with Sadr, the 22 30-year-old son of a revered Shiite ayatollah assassinated in 1999, represents a âconvergence of interests between the two figures who were left out of the Iraqi Governing Councilâ named by the U.S. last month. âI had refused to join the council, as I could not represent the Iraqi people through it, and left space for those who couldâ. But he took aims at the 25-member body for being a forum âexhibiting the viewpoint of the United Statesâ, and cited as ridiculous statements issued by the council thanking the United States for occupation â a situation Kubeisi said the first of its kind in the world. |