Associated Press

July 19, 2003 Saturday

HEADLINE: Prominent Cleric Denounces Iraq Council

BYLINE: BORZOU DARAGAHI; Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: KUFA, Iraq

BODY:
An influential Shiite Muslim cleric condemned Iraq's U.S-picked Governing Council as made up of "non-believers" and vowed to create a rival body, as his followers in a historic mosque shouted "Death to America."

Muqtada al-Sadr also called on Iraqis to volunteer for an independent Shiite army, though he condemned recent attacks on U.S. troops, saying that "right now" they were not condoned by Shiite leaders.

A U.S. soldier was fatally shot guarding a bank in the capital Saturday, while the U.S. military concluded two separate sweeps in and around Baghdad - arresting more than 1,200 people and seizing weapons, explosives and ammunition, the military said.

The death came a day after two separate attacks on convoys in which one soldier was killed. It brought to 149 the number of U.S. personnel killed in combat since the March 20 start of the war - two more than the 1991 Gulf War total for U.S. deaths in combat.

The Bush administration, struggling to quell the violence, is considering appealing to the United Nations to urge member states to supply troops and police, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday. Several countries - including Russia, France and India - have said they would not send peacekeeping forces to Iraq without a U.N. mandate.

Currently, there are about 145,000 American troops and 12,000 coalition forces including British, Poles and others in Iraq.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have discussed whether new U.N. action is needed, although a current U.N. resolution dealing with Iraq "encourages people to participate" in Iraq peacekeeping, Boucher said.

The daily attacks that have plagued U.S. occupation forces have been blamed on Sunni Muslim followers of ousted leader Saddam Hussein. Southern Iraq, home to most of Iraq's majority Shiites, has largely been calm.

But al-Sadr's call in a Friday prayer sermon reflected the deep rejection of the U.S.-led occupation felt by some sectors of the Shiite population.

"If you ignore the Governing Council, you'll be restoring good to your country," al-Sadr - the son of a revered ayatollah, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam's regime in 1999 - told worshippers during a sermon at the main mosque in the holy city of Kufa.

The U.S. administration led by L. Paul Bremer gave Shiites - who were harshly oppressed by Saddam - a majority on the new 25-member council. But most of the Shiite members are secular figures or moderate clerics. The council, which represents a wide range of factions and ethnic groups in Iraq, still must convince Iraqis it represents the people, though Bremer's administration still holds final word.

Another prominent Shiite cleric, whose movement is represented on the council, counseled patience with the body as he addressed worshippers at another mosque on Friday, in the nearby holy city of Najaf.

Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim said he believed the council would show its independence eventually because it "must be independent and represent the will of the Iraqis and not the will of the occupiers."

Al-Hakim heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a movement that worked from exile in Iran to oppose Saddam's rule. Al-Hakim's brother, Abdel-Aziz, is a council member.

Al-Sadr, however, had only harsh words for the new governing body, dismissing it as a tool of the Americans, and vowed to set up a parallel one.

"I will do my best to create a Muslim country. I will collect as many voices as I can to strengthen this council. There will be two councils: one of wrongdoers and another of righteous people," he told thousands of the faithful, many bused from Baghdad for special prayers at the Kufa mosque.

Al-Sadr, said to be in his late 20s or early 30s, has drawn backing among some Shiites mainly from the popularity of his martyred father, and he has pushed for Shiite clerics to take an active role in Iraqi politics.

In the chaos following Saddam's fall, his backers took control of many local affairs in Al-Thawra, a sprawling Shiite-majority slum in Baghdad that is his center of power, and in parts of some southern towns. It is not clear how much support he enjoys in the larger Shiite community.

As al-Sadr spoke, his followers shouted that the council is "Zionist," chanting "Death to America, Death to Israel," and called for formation of an army to liberate Iraq from American occupation.

Al-Sadr called for "volunteers to register for the great army which will take orders from the Hawza," the 1,300-year-old Shiite seminary in Najaf.

But he condemned attacks on U.S. forces. "Right now, these strikes are not under the order of the Hawza and are therefore illegitimate," he said.

Al-Sadr also lashed out at the council for making its first official action the declaration of April 9 - the day Baghdad fell to the Americans and Saddam's regime collapsed - as a new holiday.

"On this day we replaced a little Satan with big Satan. Eventually, we'll have a referendum separate from the Americans and, God willing, elections separate from the Americans," he told the AP.