Second Iraqi cleric assassinated

Two leading members of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS)—an organisation of 3,000 Sunni Muslim clerics calling for a boycott of the January 30 Iraqi elections—were assassinated this week.

Sheik Faidh Mohammed Amin al-Faidi, one of the most prominent Sunni clerics in the city of Mosul, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as he left his house on November 22. Faidi was the brother of the main AMS spokesman in Baghdad, Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi, who has made passionate speeches at the Umm al-Qura mosque in recent weeks, denouncing US war crimes in Fallujah and the anti-democratic character of the planned election.

The next day, a group of masked gunmen shot and killed a second cleric, Sheik Ghalib Ali Latif al-Zuheiri as he left his mosque following dawn prayers in the town of Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad.

It is not known who carried out the killings. Suspicion, however, must fall upon the US-led occupation forces. They have the necessary personnel and the motive—silencing opposition to the rigged elections.

The individual installed by the US to head the Iraqi interim government, Iyad Allawi, has been described as a thug even by American officials. Nothing about his history gives any reason to doubt that he is capable of ordering the murder of political opponents.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/iraq-n26.shtml