The US military has learned from people close to Iraq's most powerful spiritual leader that accounts of an assassination attempt against him on Thursday were "a fabrication," a senior military official said on Friday.
Contradictory reports about a possible attack on the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani, in the southern holy city of Najaf continued to circulate throughout the country.
The US official said the military had no further information on how reports of an attack began. Early indications of an attack came from the spokesman for a prominent politician and from security guards for the ayatollah, the reclusive leader of Iraq's 15 million Shiites.
PHOTO: AFP
The official added, though, that the US military did not have "eyes on the ground to say definitely what happened."
The politician, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, an independent Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said on Friday that he could not confirm or deny reports of an assassination attempt. On Thursday night, his spokesman, Ali al-Shapoot, said that there had been an attack on the ayatollah, who is calling for immediate direct elections in Iraq, against the wishes of the administration of US President George W. Bush.
Some security officials for al-Sistani also told news organizations on Thursday night that there had been an attempt on the ayatollah's life. Radio Sawa, a regional station operated by the US government, reported earlier in the day that threats had been made against him, and that the cleric had moved to a safe location. The radio report was possibly the first public mention of a threat of some kind.
Rubaie, a neurologist, said on Friday that "an incident" had taken place on Thursday morning that involved al-Sistani. When Rubaie went to the cleric's small home in Najaf in the afternoon, he said, the ayatollah appeared "fit" and "not shaken."
"There was a heightened sense of security at his house," Rubaie said, adding that a small metal gate had been erected at the entrance to the narrow alleyway leading to the ayatollah's home.
The mouth of the alleyway, just blocks from the golden-domed Shrine of Ali, one of the holiest pilgrimage sites for Shiites, is usually watched by a couple of plainclothes guards. Al-Sistani, 73, rarely leaves his home. He occasionally receives worshipers, politicians and other religious leaders.
When asked how he had learned about the incident, Rubaie said he did not want to answer and abruptly cut off the interview.
There appeared to be some confusion on Friday among al-Sistani's representatives as to what had happened the previous day. Nooraddin Mousawi, the brother of the ayatollah's representative in Baghdad, said on Friday that the Baghdad office could not confirm or deny whether there had been an attack and was awaiting word from Najaf. Later, the office in Najaf released a statement saying that "there was absolutely no truth in these reports."
Hamid al-Kaffaf, the ayatollah's representative in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera, the Arab-language television network, that no one from the ayatollah's office had confirmed the assassination attempt. He said the ayatollah had increased security precautions in the last two weeks because his office had received "confused information" that there might be attacks on him.
He added that the people spreading rumors of the attack were trying to interfere with the imminent visit of a U.N. team expected to assess the feasibility of direct elections for a transitional national assembly. Al-Sistani has called for such elections by June 30.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS