Word: hakim
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf, has been more cautious. And even the most influential of the Shiite groups, the Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is considering working with the U.S. In an interview with Reuters, the group's leader Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim said his group would be willing to work with the U.S., along with the UN, European Union and Arab and Islamic states, to stabilize Iraq. He also spoke against replicating the Iranian political model, instead advocating a separation of church and state. But like most other Shiite leaders, Hakim emphasized...
...Garner plans to hold an important meeting in Baghdad on Saturday to discuss postwar political planning. And getting the Shiites on board is clearly the key challenge. But al-Hakim's group stayed away from the last such meeting, and may boycott this one, too. The reason cited by al-Hakim is that his group are not sure what the American agenda is, right now. Unfortunately, that uncertainty may be shared among the Americans themselves...
Ayatollah al-Hakim had announced on Monday that he would return to Iraq within days. But al-Khoei's role may also have challenged the ambitions of Mullah al-Sadr. Even as Ayatollah al-Khoei returned to An Najaf, Mullah al-Sadr had sought to take control of humanitarian relief for the area. Although he had not met U.S. commanders himself, he had sent representatives to meetings with the Americans, who believe his ability to command substantial financial resources reflects backing from Tehran...
...Still, responses among Shiite leaders to "Operation Iraqi Freedom" have been decidedly ambiguous. While al-Khoei maintained ties with the U.S. military, al-Hakim's organization urged its supporters to remain passive. Saddam was the greater evil, they said, and Shiites should not fight to defend the regime. But SCIRI's supporters did not launch an uprising in support of the invasion, probably because of the bitter experience of 1991 when the Shiites were betrayed by the U.S. - the mass influx of SCIRI fighters from Iran during the 1991 uprising had been one reason the first Bush administration refrained from...
...Despite the potential rivalry between al-Khoei and al-Hakim, the slain cleric's supporters blamed his assassination on agents of Saddam Hussein's regime, rather than on any rivals. Indeed, Iran had not taken an outwardly hostile position to al-Khoei's return to An Najaf - Tehran's state-run news agency had, on Tuesday, carried an interview with the cleric in which he affirmed that coalition forces had not damaged any of the Shiite shrines, as had previously been reported...