Iraqis Said to Riot After Cleric’s Slaying

The slaying of Iraq’s highest-ranking Shiite Muslim cleric by unidentified gunmen ignited anti-government riots in Baghdad and several other Iraqi cities Saturday, according to opposition spokesmen whose reports were partially corroborated by Western journalists in Baghdad.

Iraq’s government, however, denied that any clashes had taken place and denounced the accounts of unrest as “baseless.”

Shiite opposition groups in exile reported that several people were killed and wounded in clashes that broke out after the announcement of the slaying of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr, spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority.

Sadr and his two sons were killed Friday, according to the Iraqi News Agency, which said several suspects had been arrested.

After the announcement, Cable News Network quoted witnesses as saying that Shiites had clashed with police in the poor, predominantly Shiite suburb of Baghdad known as Saddam City.

Journalists saw an unusual deployment of heavily armed security forces patrolling the streets in that area, CNN said.

The reported unrest would be highly unusual for Iraq, a country controlled by security forces and secret police loyal to President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The Iraqi regime has come under heavy pressure recently, first with a four-day U.S.-British missile and bombing campaign in December, then with the intermittent bombing since and with strong statements by the U.S. government offering to help the Iraqi people work for the overthrow of Hussein.

Although Iraqi state media denounced the perpetrators of the “vicious” murders of Sadr and his sons, Shiites outside Iraq tended to blame the regime for the killings, as they did after the slayings of two other senior Shiite clerics and the attempted assassination of a third in the past 10 months.

Opposition spokesmen portrayed the unrest Saturday as a spontaneous eruption of rage against the government.

“Clashes between angry Iraqi citizens and Hussein’s repressive forces took place in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala and all governorates in the south,” said the Al Dawa Shiite opposition party in a statement issued in Damascus, Syria.

The Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization for Iraqi opposition groups, issued a statement in London saying that Najaf and Kufa in southern Iraq were “besieged by the forces of the Republican Guard due to the mounting and explosive atmosphere of grievance and unrest.” It said there had been “numerous deaths and injuries.”

The protests in Saddam City started with a demonstration in a mosque with worshipers shouting “God is great,” CNN reported.

Dr. Hamed Bayati, a London-based spokesman for the Shiite opposition group the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said his group had also received reports of clashes in Najaf, the Shiite holy city where Sadr was based, and elsewhere.

“It is very clear discontent is spreading among the people of Iraq, including the elite, the Republican Guard and the people around Saddam,” Bayati said. “The Iraqi people are expecting change to take place, and sooner rather than later.”

To bolster the government’s denial that any clashes had taken place, Iraqi authorities escorted journalists to Saddam City on Saturday night to show that the area was calm.

According to Bayati, Sadr may have been killed because he angered Iraqi authorities in recent weeks with his growing outspokenness and independence.

Contrary to the wishes of authorities, he attempted to preach a Friday sermon two weeks ago at the mosque of Kufa, near Najaf, after the government had tried to bar him from the mosque on the pretext that it needed renovations.

“This was a sign of his resistance to the government,” Bayati said.

Bayati questioned the government’s statements that Sadr was killed Friday, saying the slayings may have happened earlier.

“We have been in contact with some people inside Iraq who confirmed he was buried before any funeral taking place and before they [the government] announced the news about the killing,” he said.

Prior to the slaying of Sadr, two other senior Shiite clerics had been killed in Iraq since last April, and a third was wounded in an assassination attempt in January.

Bayati said Shiites blame the government for the deaths of Ayatollah Ali Mohammed Barujurdi last April and for the killing of Sheik Mirza Ali Gharavi in June.

Shiites account for 65% of Iraq’s 22 million people, but the government itself is dominated by Sunni Muslims like Hussein.

Shiite opposition groups supported by Iran have been waging an insurrection against Hussein’s rule in southern Iraq for years.

Only harsh repression by the Republican Guard succeeded in putting down a mass Shiite uprising immediately after the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Thousands of Shiites are believed to have perished in that failed uprising.