Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite Muslim leaders, was buried in the holy city of Najaf on Saturday, three days after his death cast more uncertainty over Iraq’s turbulent politics.
Hakim, 59, a popular cleric who headed the powerful Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), died on Wednesday in Tehran, where he was being treated for lung cancer.
He was buried beside his elder brother Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, who was killed in a 2003 bombing that was claimed by al-Qaeda. Hakim took charge of ISCI from his brother.
PHOTO: EPA
Thousands of Hakim’s supporters in black or white robes thronged streets beside a motorcade carrying his coffin to the burial site.
They waved green flags and held banners. One read: “Goodbye, Abu Ammar,” an affectionate name for the cleric.
Some prayed, others beat their heads and chests with their hands in a traditional mourning ritual. One of his aides placed his trademark black turban on the car’s roof.
Supporters carried his coffin, wrapped in a green shroud to the Imam Ali Shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites. He was interred in a cemetery about 1.5km away.
“Iraq has lost someone who can never be replaced,” 39-year-old government employee Ali Mohammed Abbas said. “He was a national and religious figure and a guide for all Iraqi people.”
ISCI last Monday said it would lead a new, mostly Shiite alliance to compete in January’s national polls without Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s small Dawa party, raising questions about possible disunity amongst Iraq’s Shiite majority.
Hakim’s son, Ammar al-Hakim, who has been groomed to take over ISCI but may yet face internal leadership challenges, has urged those outside the new alliance to join it.
ISCI was founded in Iran in exile during the rule of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. It has close ties to Iran’s rulers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Iraq: “[Hakim’s] death is a loss for the political process. His eminence made sacrifices to liberate Iraq from dictatorship.”
ISCI derives much support from the Hakim family name, revered among Shiites for its lineage of scholars and sacrifice in the face of assaults by Saddam and other violence. Saddam killed eight of Hakim’s brothers and many more of his family.
ISCI and Maliki’s Dawa party swept to power in 2005 polls as part of a broad Shiite coalition, but over the past year wrangling over alliances has intensified.
Violence has fallen overall in Iraq, but a spike in major attacks in the past month is expected to continue ahead of the polls and as US forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS