Iraqis march in support of Shiite religious center in Najaf

SAMAWA, Iraq (AFP) Apr 16, 2003
Some 3,000 people in this southern Iraqi town took to the streets on Wednesday to demonstrate support for the center of Shiite religious learning in the holy city of Najaf, an AFP reporter said.

The marchers carried portraits of Ayatollah Ali Sistani, foremost Shiite religious authority in Najaf, of Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, a senior religious leader assassinated in 1999, ostensibly by the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein, and of Sadr's son Muqtada.

"The demonstration is designed to express support for the religious school of Najaf and denounce the plots hatched against it," the imam of Samawa, Sheikh Kadhem al-Addawi, told the marchers.

The march was apparently intended to back unity in Najaf, central Iraq, following inter-Shiite tensions which erupted in the holy city that is home to Imam Ali's tomb in the wake of Saddam's ouster by US forces.

SPACE.WIRE