Iraq: Rival Shia Muslims fought in the Iraqi city of Kerbala yesterday, leaving at least one dead in the first armed clashes between Shia groups since the US-led war which ousted Saddam Hussein, witnesses said.
Fighting between followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who wants to oust Iraq's US-backed administration, and supporters of moderate cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani erupted after dark on Monday and continued into the morning.
Both sides were armed with Kalashnikov rifles. Hospital officials said one Iraqi was killed and 21 were wounded. But an eyewitness said he saw seven bodies.
Moderate leaders of Iraq's majority Shia population have advocated cautious co-operation with the US-led administration in the hope of winning power in a future Iraqi government after years of oppression under Saddam's Sunni-dominated administration.
But Sadr has accused Iraq's occupiers of failing Shias and last week announced he was establishing his own provisional Islamic government to rival the US-appointed Governing Council, made up of 25 Iraqis from across the country's ethnic and religious spectrum.
"The majority agrees. Not one Iraqi agrees with the Governing Council," Sadr told a press conference in the city of Najaf later yesterday, saying the will of the Iraqis would be shown in street protests.
"My government will open the door to . . . mass demonstrations that will eventually lead to a real government," he said.
Sheikh Mohammed Kinaani, a cleric in Kerbala who said he was not affiliated to either side, said Sadr's followers tried to take over the shrine - which was previously controlled by Sistani supporters - triggering the clashes.
Sadr has a strong following in Sadr City, the huge Shia slum district of Baghdad named after his father, a revered cleric whose murder in 1999 was widely believed to have been ordered by Saddam.
Sadr said he wanted a "peaceful revolution" but did little to calm tension between rival Shias.
"Those who cooperate with the occupiers are not Shias and not Muslims," he said when asked about Sistani's followers. - (Reuters)