The Shiite cleric based in Iran who was the mentor of the rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has in recent weeks publicly broken with al-Sadr and withdrawn his support.
The cleric, Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, had once encouraged armed opposition by al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, against both Saddam Hussein and US-led forces in Iraq. But Haeri, who has ties to some high-level conservative clerics in Iran, began distancing himself from his protege a year ago and is now directly appealing for peace.
"I condemn the events in Iraq and advise the two groups, the interim government and Mahdi Army, to resolve their differences without the interference of others," he said in a statement after the standoff between al-Sadr's militia and US forces flared last month in the Iraqi city of Najaf.
Haeri, an Iraqi who came to Qum for religious studies in 1973, had appointed al-Sadr to be his representative and Friday Prayer leader in the city of Kufa after the fall of Saddam.
"Moqtada is not his representative anymore," the ayatollah's brother, Mustafa Haeri, who is also the director of his brother's office in Qum, said late last month.
On his Web site, alhaeri.org, Ayatollah Haeri denies supporting al-Sadr and says that he has stripped him of his position.
"The formation of Mahdi Army was not by our order," the Web site states.
The first evidence of Ayatollah Haeri's change of heart toward al-Sadr came in August last year, when he told Alireza Shaker, an analyst and journalist in Tehran, that although he opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq, he was concerned over "the timing and the location" of al-Sadr's revolt.
"He felt that his support for al-Sadr may tarnish his reputation in the Shiite world," Shaker said in an interview.
"He wants to be able to play a role in the future of Iraq, and so wants to keep a good name for himself."
Shaker said that when he had visited Haeri last year at his office, a group of al-Sadr's supporters, who had come from Iraq, were causing a commotion at his office, apparently in response to his effort to distance himself from al-Sadr. "You are traitor," Shaker said one Iraqi kept shouting.
There is heavy security at Haeri's office, on a narrow alley off the main street of Qum. He cautiously drives into the backyard of the office with his bodyguard, who is a member of Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guard, and refuses to meet with journalists.
Haeri, 68, defected to Iran after Saddam's government began expelling Iraqis who were of Iranian origin. It is unclear whether he was born in Iran or Iraq, but his grandfather was Iranian. He taught religious studies at his school in Qum for many years, and is the author of several books on Islamic law. But he became better known publicly after al-Sadr began his revolt in Iraq.
Haeri is a supporter of an Islamic state in Iraq, unlike Iraq's most revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who favors separation of state and religion.
Haeri favored armed opposition to Saddam, and his religious decrees were collected in a book, The Case For Armed Opposition. His office now refuses to give out copies of his book.
"The book is irrelevant now that Mr. Hussein has been toppled," Mustafa Haeri said.
Ayatollah Haeri has developed close ties with Iranian officials over the years and is a member of the board that approves the religious credentials of candidates running for the Council of Experts, which is responsible for supervising the conduct of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is also a member of the hard-line Association of Teachers in Qum.
Yet Iran's position on al-Sadr is unclear. It has formally said it wants to see stability in Iraq and does not support any militia force.
Iranian political analysts, however, say hard-liners in Iran may secretly want to stir the violence in Iraq to prevent the formation of a powerful Shiite center in Najaf, which could overshadow the religious leadership role of Qum.
"The news had such a negative impact in Qum that Ayatollah Haeri was forced to withdraw his support for Mr. Sadr," Qabel said.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
RSS