Shi'ites march in Iraqi holy city after bomb

Thousands of angry Shi'ite Muslims, some vowing revenge, thronged the streets of the Iraqi holy city of Najaf yesterday for the funerals of three men killed in a bomb attack that wounded a top cleric.

Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, who was slightly injured in Sunday's bombing, is the uncle of the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), criticised by some Shi'ites for cooperating with the US-led occupation.

SCIRI said its movement was the target of Sunday's attack, which blew a hole in the side of Hakim's office and killed three bodyguards. Some supporters blamed a rival cleric who has condemned the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

Power struggles in Najaf are key to the future of Iraq, whose 60-per cent Shi'ite majority is eager for a taste of power long denied them under repressive Sunni Muslim rule. Many leaders returned from exile after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Infighting among Shi'ites is unwelcome for US forces grappling with an insurgency they blame on Saddam's loyalists.

And it is also unwelcome for US President George W. Bush, whose approval ratings are slipping ahead of an election year when he will hope to present his Iraq campaign as a success.

Washington is keen to rein in more radical Shi'ite leaders who favour a theocratic Islamic republic for Iraq similar to that of their neighbours in Shi'ite Iran.

The bomb followed days of ethnic violence between Kurds and Turkmen in the north, which killed at least 12, and the killing on Saturday of three British soldiers in Basra in the south.

In a sign of increasing security fears, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced on Sunday it was cutting its Baghdad staff after last week's truck bomb which killed 23 people at the United Nations' headquarters in the city.

In Najaf, many in the crowd of at least 2,000 blamed Sunday's bombing on supporters of rival leader Moqtada al-Sadr. His group denied involvement.

"This was Moqtada al-Sadr. His people did it," said 60-year- old Muslim Raadi, as he followed the procession of three wooden coffins. "Now there will be revenge.

"The only way to stop this is for the people of Najaf to stop it. We will have to form our own militia."

SCIRI, led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, is represented on the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council, which Washington calls a first step towards democracy.

The attack took place near the Imam Ali mosque, tomb of Ali, a caliph and cousin of the Prophet Mohammed, and the most sacred Shi'ite site in Islam. Ten people were wounded by the bomb, which left glass and debris strewn across Hakim's office.

Tension between rival Shi'ite groups in the city, 150 kilometres south of Baghdad, has risen since US forces took Baghdad on April 9. The following day, a mob hacked cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei to death at the Imam Ali shrine.

Mohammed Hussein al-Hakim, the son of the cleric wounded on Sunday, said the attack was aimed at fuelling instability and urged Shi'ites not to descend into a cycle of violence.

"Be united in your religion and refer to religious scholars before doing anything," said the Islamic scholar, speaking inside the bombed building guarded by Iraqi police wearing body armour and carrying AK-47 assault rifles. US troops, who have kept a low profile in Najaf because of religious sensitivities, were nowhere to be seen.

Shi'ites concentrated in south and central Iraq suffered decades of oppression under Saddam, a Sunni, and those areas have seen less resistance to the US-led occupation than Sunni-dominated areas north and west of the Baghdad.

US forces based in Saddam's home town of Tikrit said yesterday they had captured two senior members of the former Iraqi leader's Fedayeen militia and three others suspected of attacking American soldiers in areas north of Baghdad.