Word: ayatullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this day, Iranian officials assert that their uranium-enrichment activities are purely for energy or research purposes rather than military ones. "There's no place for nuclear weapons in our national security doctrine," Larijani told TIME. He points out that Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa forbidding the use of nuclear weapons. But such claims were undermined again in January when the IAEA reported an administrative link between a uranium-conversion program known as Green Salt and efforts to weaponize missiles that, for the first time, appeared to show an attempt to harness the nuclear program...
...futility of toppling Saddam Hussein, consider that the worst repressor of individual freedom in the Middle East - Iran - is still busy fomenting strife among its neighbors. Its hand shows up in not just Iraq but also Syria and Lebanon. It is convenient for Iran's supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, to blame the U.S. for Iraq's current troubles while his agents are busy there. Iran's militant regime is sowing chaos in the Middle East as it goes flat out to develop nuclear weapons. It needs a distracted West and a war-torn Iraq to accomplish that goal...
...closely guarded secret: he is thought to be in his mid-30s. He is married and has children, although his aides won't disclose how many. He bears a name revered by Shi'ites all over the world: al-Sadr's father and uncle were influential and popular ayatullahs murdered by Saddam's regime. Muqtada was a virtual unknown in Iraq until the U.S. invasion, after which he began building his power base through often ruthless means: his supporters were blamed for the April 2003 assassination in Najaf of an influential pro-Western ayatullah. (The U.S. initially fingered al-Sadr...
...August: Four months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, a car bomb kills leading Shi'ite politician Ayatullah Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim and 90 others near Najaf's Tomb...
...August: Pro-Sadr forces clash with the U.S. in Baghdad and Najaf. After the intervention of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the rebels agree to end their insurgency...