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Mourners carry the body of Fadhil al-Akil to his burial in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, Friday Iraqi police say gunmen have killed an aide to the country's most revered Shi'ite cleric, in the latest attack on his associates. Police say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's aide, Sheikh Fadhil Aqil, was killed late Thursday in a drive-by shooting outside his home in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. Last month, another aide, Sheikh Abdullah Falak, who collected religious taxes for Sistani was stabbed to death in Najaf. In statements issued Friday, the U.S. military in Iraq said four American soldiers...

BAGHDAD, July 21 -- A top aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was stabbed to death in what Sistani's supporters believe was a warning to Iraq's senior Shiite cleric, authorities said Saturday. Abdullah Falaq was killed Friday in his office, which is adjacent to Sistani's home in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, according to an aide to the cleric. Sistani is considered one of the most influential Shiite leaders in Iraq, and Falaq was his chief adviser on matters of Islamic law. Police said they had taken four suspects into custody. An...

Excerpt - NAJAF, Iraq, June 6 (Reuters) - A local representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the reclusive spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, was gunned down outside his home, Sistani's office and police said on Wednesday. Raheem al-Hasnawi, who represented Sistani in the town of al-Mishkhab, 40 km (25 miles) north of the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, was killed late on Tuesday, they said. A spokesman for Sistani's office said three gunmen riding in a car shot Hasnawi outside his home in al-Mishkhab. ~ snip ~

BAGHDAD — Iraq's largest Shiite Muslim party pledged its allegiance Saturday to the country's top cleric in a move apparently aimed at establishing its distance from Iran, where it formed and grew for decades before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion here. The announcement by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq did not signal a sudden shift. The party has sought to align itself with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani since it came out of exile in Iran. It won a quarter of the seats in Iraq's parliament and control of the southern provinces. The party's power is centered in...

Baghdad, May 9, (VOI)-The Iraqi parliament unanimously agreed on Wednesday to file a lawsuit against al-Jazeera television for allegedly giving offence to Iraqi religious leaders. At the beginning of the parliamentary session held on Wednesday, presided over by House Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Iraqi parliamentarians condemned the attack that they said the Qatari al-Jazeera satellite channel launched on top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when it said "he was appointed by Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq." "Al-Sistani is fruitful tree. He has a long and well-known history," al-Mashhadani said in the session attended by a correspondent for...

Attack on Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani foiled January 29, 2007 CNN Newsource KLTV Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other top Shiite religious figures were the apparent targets of an insurgent plot thwarted in an intense battle near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, Iraqi officials said. U.S. forces took the lead role Monday in fighting against insurgents north of Najaf. The battle apparently foiled a plot to kill leading pilgrims and clerics, including al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite leader. The insurgents were planning a massive siege of Najaf on Tuesday, the culmination of the Shiite holy period of Ashura. By...

Everyone will have his own startling encounter with Islam -- the real thing, not what Muslim apologists, hoping to give everyone a carefully-circumscribed "peek into the Koran" (and let's make sure that none of these unwary Infidels manages to read anything beyond the Michael Sells "Approaching the Qur'an" and by all means, keep them from looking into the Hadith or the Sira), have on offer. It is almost always limited to highly selective quotation from the Qur'an. The Hadith, and the Sira -- sorry, off limits for now. One keeps being surprised at how little people think they need to...

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war. Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks. "I will not be a political leader any more," he told aides. "I am only happy to receive questions about religious matters." However, the extent to which he has...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric on Saturday warned the prime minister to quell violence or risk "other powers" filling the gap, while police found the tortured and blindfolded bodies of 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims and their Iraqi driver. At least 15 violent deaths were reported elsewhere in Iraq, while the government announced it had formally taken over the notorious Abu Ghraib prison from coalition authorities. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, the cleric's office said. In July, al-Sistani was credited with restraining the Shiite community...

For months, calming statements from the ayatollah held Shiites back from retaliating for killings by Sunni insurgents. But three years of insurgency, sectarian tensions and miserable living conditions have shrunk the space for temperance and given extremists plenty of room to operate. "[Sistani] doesn't have the same degree of influence," says Joost Hilterman, director of the International Crisis Group's Iraq program, based in Jordan. "He may be saying the same things, but fewer people are listening to him." As much as anything, the battle now is about which voices will shape the future of Iraq. Not too long ago Sistani...

<p>Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Iraq's most senior Shia clerics, has called for the next government to dismantle militias operating in the country.</p> <p>The grand ayatollah said only the government should have weapons, and its forces should be loyal to the nation - not to individual political parties.</p>

A letter from President Bush to Iraq's supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in the top religious figure's office, a key al-Sistani aide told The Associated Press on Thursday. The aide _ who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani's refusal to make any public statements himself _ said the ayatollah had laid the letter aside and did not ask for a translation because of increasing "unhappiness" over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent...

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has called on Iraqis to unite and praised the appeasing role played by top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani, his lawyer said Monday. Saddam, who is on trial for crimes against humanity, called "for unity at all levels to stop those who want to trigger sedition and division", lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said in a statement. The call follows last week's unprecedented sectarian violence in which more than 120 people were killed. Saddam also "paid tribute to Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the religious authority, for his efforts to prevent sectarian strife". The Shiite religious leader appealed...

BAGHDAD — There is an Arabic phrase that aptly describes Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani's role in this week's elections: "Absent yet present." Sistani, who wields vast influence among Iraq's majority Shiites, has not publicly endorsed any candidates. But there's little doubt of his choices — and why. The Iranian-born cleric has issued a binding fatwa, or edict, instructing followers to vote in Thursday's parliamentary elections. He did not endorse any particular candidates, but his cryptic warning against "splitting the vote and risking its waste" suggested his support for major Shiite religious parties grouped in the United Iraqi Alliance. The...

A Shia nuclear scientist said to be close to Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is emerging as one of the frontrunners to become the new prime minister of Iraq. Hussain Shahristani spent a decade in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison for defying former dictator Saddam Hussein's command to turn his scientific expertise to the development of nuclear weapons. Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations special envoy, and Robert Blackwill, a Bush administration official, are still finalising the composition of the new Iraqi government. Officials say that balancing the communal, religious and ethnic groups within the new government is proving difficult and fluid, and caution that...

White seculars in Tehran insist that 90% of the Iranian political power is found in Qum, some might also add that at least 70% of the Iraqi political power is also found in Qum. Asia Times Newspaper correspondent has visited 'The International Association for Ahl Al Bait (The Prophets Family), which is supervised by his eminence Al Sayyid Ali Al Sestani and asked a question that stated: Which is the voice with the greatest credibility in the Shiite sect? Is it the sedate and solitary voice in Najaf, which forced the Americans to submit for its desires? Or is it...

Iraq's proposed constitution, adopted Sunday without a vote by Iraq's interim parliament, marks both a significant achievement and an imperfect compromise, as are all such political dispensations shaped by conflict among competing factional interests. This constitution offers a decidedly mixed picture, with grounds for hope and grounds for concern. Among the latter are potentially grave risks for religious freedom, the cornerstone of all basic human rights. How far does this document meet President Bush's "non-negotiable demands of human dignity," which in turn underlie the "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East" in defense of U.S. interests and ideals? In...

Is the decision by the Iraqi National Assembly... to postpone for a week its scheduled debate on a new draft constitution "a major setback" for the newly liberated nation, or just a bump on the road to democratization? No doubt, many nostalgics of Saddam Hussein had been praying that the Aug. 15 deadline would not be met. These are people who want Iraq to fail so that they could prove that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were wrong.... The postponement was a setback if only because this was the first time that the new leadership couldn't meet a political...

Much hope is presently vested, by friends of a free Iraq, in the 74-year-old grand ayatollah, Sayyid Ali al-Husseini Sistani. Ayatollah Sistani acts as a marja, or religious guide, for many if not most Iraqi Shia Muslims from his residence in the holy city of Najaf. Since the Shia make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population, it is a matter of some interest to know just where the grand ayatollah would lead his followers. Sistani has thus far been an unwavering advocate of elected government in Iraq (far more steadfast than the Coalition itself). And now it is possible...

An obscure Arabic word is making a comeback from centuries of oblivion to dominate the debate about whom Muslims are allowed to kill in the service of political goals. The debate has been triggered by the killing of large numbers of Muslims, including women and children, by Islamist insurgents in Iraq. Are such acts permissible? Judging by fatwas (religious opinions) and articles by Muslim theologians and commentators, the Islamic ummah (community) is divided on the issue. Those who believe that killing innocent people, including Muslims, is justified in certain cases, base their opinion on the principle of tattarrus. The word,...