Word: sistani
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...City ringing the glorious shrine, where millions of Shi'ite faithful come on pilgrimage, has been battered by three weeks of savage battle into a blasted warscape of empty, broken buildings. With the dramatic intervention last week of the Shi'ites' most revered leader, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, 74, the domed shrine was saved and the siege of the holy city of Najaf brought to a quiet close. Calling on thousands of faithful followers, Sistani made a momentous arrival from London, where he had been undergoing heart treatment, setting the stage for a face-to-face showdown with Muqtada...
...alienating peaceful Shi'ites forced the Allawi government to hold back from its threats to launch a decisive strike against rebels inside the shrine. And so late last week, even as al-Sadr claimed to be handing over the site to officials loyal to Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, al-Sadr's shock troops remained armed and in control of the streets surrounding...
...deadly orange glow. U.S. military commanders said they were merely "shaping the battlefield" in case a frontal assault was ordered. But al-Sadr is adept at divining when to back down. On Friday he promised to "turn over the keys" of the sacred shrine to representatives of Sistani, the most revered Shi'ite religious leader, who has been out of the country for weeks while receiving cardiac treatment in London. Over the weekend an ambiguous resolution seemed to take hold as al-Sadr's fighters removed weapons from the shrine and the numbers holed up inside dwindled from as many...
...fact that Sistani has scrupulously avoided publicly condemning Moqtada or endorsing government action against him is telling. It's well known that Sistani neither likes nor respects Moqtada, but he also recognizes that Moqtada has a considerable following among his own flock. And it will be plain for Sistani to see that his own position has weakened in the course of the siege, a widespread perception that he absented himself at Najaf's time of need. Sadr's rise has challenged the prevailing Shiite clerical order in Iraq in the way that Ayatollah Khomeini did in Iran 25 years...
...Sadr will likely emerge from the Najaf siege intact, and his supporters will be looking for guidance on their next step. Although they were forced to surrender the Imam Ali Mosque - to Sistani, not to the Iraqi government - they also showed considerable ability to cause problems through guerrilla warfare from Baghdad to Basra, the latter city being where they took Iraq's oil exports offline for days at a time. The Iraqi government will persist with efforts to bring him on board, but he's reluctant to accord them legitimacy, and he may be assuming that the siege has actually...