washingtonpost.com: Top Iraqi Cleric Said to Survive Attempt on Life

Correction to This Article
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article contained an incorrect translation of the Arabic word "sayyid," which is an honorific indicating that a person is descended from the Prophet Muhammad.

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 6, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Feb. 5 -- Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential religious leader, survived an assassination attempt Thursday in the sacred Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, an aide said.

The incident was shrouded in conflicting reports and denials, reflecting the intense interest that Iraqis and foreigners have in Sistani, a pivotal figure in the country's transition from U.S. occupation to Iraqi rule. The reclusive cleric serves as the supreme religious authority for Iraq's Shiites, who account for a majority of the country's 25 million people, and has emerged as a pivotal figure in its politics.

"Sayyid Sistani is very well and in very good health," said Jaffar Bassam, a representative of Sistani's office in London, referring to the ayatollah with an Arabic honorific.

Bassam, reached by telephone, said he could not confirm the attempt on Sistani's life and was awaiting more information. But a security official with Sistani's office in Najaf, who identified himself only as Abu Abdullah, said the attempt occurred between 11:30 a.m. and noon. Sistani, who has not appeared in public in more than six years, was outside of his home when he was fired on with AK-47 assault rifles, Abu Abdullah said.

A second official, Ali Waad, said four suspects were captured and that some people were wounded in an exchange of gunfire.

Residents in Najaf, about 90 miles south of Baghdad, said there was confusion in the streets over the circumstances of the attempt, and as the day wore on representatives from Shiite religious parties and Sistani's own officials denied that any incident had taken place. The confusion was heightened by conflicting reports carried on the local Najaf television station. At 7 p.m., Ghadeer Television broadcast a message congratulating Sistani on his safety. Two hours later, the station carried a denial that there had been an attempt on his life.

Thursday afternoon, after the assassination attempt was said to have occurred, Sistani received guests at his home. Among them was Mowaffak Rubaie, a Shiite member of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council and a frequent visitor of Sistani's, who said the ayatollah was "safe and sound." A spokesman for Rubaie, Ali Shabout, said in Baghdad that Sistani had been moved to a "safe place" in Iraq for "security reasons."

An attempt to kill Sistani could have far-reaching repercussions in Iraq. By far the most influential figure among Shiites, he nevertheless faces resentment within more radical Shiite currents. The most prominent among them is led by Moqtada Sadr, a junior cleric whose father vied with Sistani for influence before being assassinated in 1999. As Iraq begins devising a post-occupation government, differences between the country's major groups -- Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslim Arabs and ethnic Kurds, who are also Sunnis -- have sharpened, and some Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders have voiced worries over the implications of Sistani's growing influence.

If confirmed, the assassination attempt would be at least the third on the 73-year-old religious leader and the first since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April. Sistani's aides have said the most serious attempt on his life occurred in 1997, when two men in turbans entered his office before evening prayers. Before Sistani appeared, they opened fire with pistols hidden in bags, killing a worker who served tea and wounding another assistant. The assailants then fled.

Since then, Sistani is not known to have left his home, a two-story brick building down a winding alley near the Imam Ali Shrine, one of Shiite Islam's most sacred sites. Since soon after the war, armed guards have been posted at the entrance to the alley, which is blocked by a metal barricade. Located near hotels for Shiite pilgrims, a bookstore and barbershops, the office is unmarked except for leaflets pledging support for Sistani's political demands.

Through most of his career, Sistani has rigorously eschewed politics, avoiding a fate that befell dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other more assertive clerics during Hussein's rule. But in the vacuum that ensued after Hussein's fall, Sistani has delivered religious judgments with sweeping political implications.

In June, he insisted that the body writing Iraq's constitution must be elected, forcing the U.S. administration to scrap its original plan for a political transition. He then objected to the alternative, announced Nov. 15, that outlined a series of caucuses in Iraq's 18 provinces that would choose representatives for a transitional assembly. That body would, in turn, choose a provisional government that would take power by June 30, formally ending the U.S. occupation.

But in December, Sistani said that any assembly must be elected by a direct, nationwide vote. His calls brought tens of thousands of supporters into the streets of Iraq's two largest cities last month. Both Sistani and the U.S. administration are now awaiting the findings of a U.N. mission charged with determining whether elections are possible and, if not, devising alternatives.