Unity plea wiped out in huge blast

IRAQI Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim was killed at the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf yesterday, along with at least 75 other people, just moments after delivering a sermon calling for unity.

The Imam Ali mosque in Najaf is revered by the world's 120 million Shiite Muslims and has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries.

Historians say the gold-domed mosque of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib named after the murdered cousin and son-in-law of Islam's prophet Muhammad was built in 977 in Najaf, a city regarded by Shiite Muslims as the faith's third holiest in the world after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.