Tension escalates as Iraqi Shi’ites vow revenge for bomb attack

THOUSANDS of angry Shi’ite Muslims, many 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 co-operating with the US-led occupation.

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

Power struggles in Najaf are key to the future of Iraq, whose 60% 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.

Faction-fighting among Shi’ites is also an added difficulty for US forces already grappling with an insurgency they blame on Saddam loyalists.

And it is also unwelcome for 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 Turks 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 it is cutting its Baghdad staff after last week’s truck bomb which killed 24 people at the United Nations headquarters in the city. Sixty-four American soldiers have been killed in guerrilla attacks since Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1.