Reuters: Aide to Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Sistani killed

[cyberpj]

Aide to Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Sistani killed
06 Jun 2007 10:46:20 GMT
Source: Reuters

NAJAF, Iraq, June 6 (Reuters) - A local representative of revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the reclusive spiritual leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, was gunned down outside his home, Sistani's office and police said on Wednesday.

Raheem al-Hasnawi, who represented Sistani in the town of al-Mishkhab, 40 km (25 miles) south of the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, was killed late on Tuesday, they said.

A spokesman for Sistani's office said three gunmen riding in a car shot Hasnawi outside his home in al-Jazeera, on the northern outskirts of Najaf, just before midnight. "He was killed immediately," the spokesman said.

snip-

Sistani is the sponsor of the ruling United Alliance bloc to which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Shi'ite political leaders belong. He is acknowledged as the patron of a delicately structured Shi'ite political movement which also includes anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06240632.htm

[merh]

1. And things are just lovely in Iraq

that democracy we brought has spread such sunshine. :(