Word: najaf
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...estimated 100,000 of his followers poured into the streets of Baghdad last week to demand direct elections in Iraq, Grand Ayatullah Ali Sistani stayed out of sight, holed up in the same nondescript white-walled compound on an alley off the Street of the Messenger in Najaf where he was kept under house arrest during the rule of Saddam Hussein. A crowd of followers seeking his counsel gathered outside. Some were allowed to enter; others were told by the guards to submit their questions in writing and come back another...
Sistani's background, however, suggests he prefers a different course. Born in Iran to a family of clerics, Sistani started memorizing the Koran at age 5, according to his official biography. In the early 1950s, he moved to the Iraqi city of Najaf, the site of one of the holiest shrines in Shi'ism. He later became a student of Grand Ayatullah Abul Khoei, who would turn out to be Iraq's leading cleric. As Saddam ruthlessly suppressed clerical activism, Khoei advocated "quietism," the belief that the clergy should mainly serve spiritual and social needs, and not focus on matters...
...broader nationalist and Islamist response to occupation, he was an albatross. The circumstances of his capture almost alone in a grimy bolt-hole outside his home town certainly appears to suggest that for those waging daily attacks on U.S. forces from Mosul in the north to Najaf in the south, protecting Saddam Hussein may not have been the first operational priority. His capture also raises a dilemma for those insurgents looking to broaden the appeal of their rebellion - Saddam may have been more use to them as a symbol of the past, rather than as a captive of the enemy...
...against U.S. forces in Iraq. Former regime officials believe some of the revenge killings are being committed by members of the Badr Brigade, an armed militia loyal to Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, another Shi'ite cleric, who died in the August bombing of the sacred shrine of Ali in Najaf...
...been reluctant to move directly against Moqtada al-Sadr, fearing that this would stir up a confrontation with his supporters. But the radicals are clearly staking out their turf as the political day of reckoning approaches, and were involved in violent clashes with supporters of the moderate clerics at Najaf on Tuesday. A series of roadside bomb attack on British forces in Basra in recent days also suggests an emerging Shiite militancy...