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The Fattest Terrorist

May 26, 2004
National Review Online
Michael Ledeen

The senior Shiite clerics in Najaf have savagely denounced Moqtada al Sadr, along with those who are fighting alongside him. You can find extensive excerpts on the website www.healingiraq.com, but here are some high points from the document:

"...the movement of Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr ... is losing legitimacy...The movement of Sayyid Muqtada...has encouraged the occupiers to cross the red lines. And as aside from that, the American occupiers while storming into Iraq and marching towards Baghdad through Najaf and Karbala did not commit the stupidities and insolence with regard to the sanctities in the two holy cities they have committed now.

"It is clear that the organization of Sayyid Muqtada — and whoever follows the Sadrist movement — were the first to violate the sanctity of the yard of Haydari Shareef (Imam Ali's shrine in Najaf) when they fired shots inside it at Sayyid Abdul Majeed Al-Kho'ei and killed Sayyid Yasiri within it and wounded Sayyid Majeed and killed Sayyid Hayder Al-Kelidar afterwards. And they are the very same who ignited the fuse of the bloody fight, whose victims among gathered believers were sacrificed over control of the shrine of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him)...

"The organization of Sayyid Muqtada is now carrying out intimidation of the general public and arrests of citizens, not only those whom they call collaborators with the occupation, the police, owners of stores selling foodstuffs to occupiers and others, but also students of religious sciences opposed to them and some of the members of the Badr organization [SCIRI], in addition to raiding offices of the Da'wa party in Kufa...

"The firing of shots at the great dome of the shrine of Imam Ali (peace be upon him) [in Najaf], according to some specialists was most likely from the weapons of Sayyid Muqtada's followers and not from the weapons of others...

"The strike on the home and office of his Excellence Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani happened within the security perimeter whose every span was controlled by the organization of Sayyid Muqtada, and the office of Marji' Ali [Sistani] was in the immediate proximity to the center of the security perimeter of Sayyid Muqtada's organization [office], well guarded, and especially so in the vicinity of both of their offices, and so how can it be conceived that this stringent security perimeter was breached by an unknown organization, which carried out a protracted strike on the home of the Sayyid Marji' [Sistani] and then retreated without the cognizance of the organization of Sayyid Muqtada...."

In other words, Moqtada is an illegitimate religious leader, his movement is a bunch of thugs, he tried to have Sistani killed (and I can tell you that the ayatollahs in Tehran are desperate for this to happen), and then lied about it, and he, not the Coalition forces, fired on the holy sites in Najaf.

This is decidedly not coming from "our side," it's coming from leading Shiite clerics, and it adds up to a thunderous rebuke of Moqtada. The only thing they might have added is the impressive obesity of the man. I mean, how does one explain that a religious leader of the poor and downtrodden is one of the fattest guys in the Middle East? He's certainly not calorie challenged.

Someone ought to tell the mullahs in Tehran that their money's going for food, and not for guns to kill the infidels and crusaders. My guess is that they're looking for a new horse in Iraq.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200405251028.asp