Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Al-Madaen is also the name of the Sheik that was assasinated.



Friday, January 14, 2005

Top Shiite cleric's aide assassinated
Al-Sistani's representative says the Jan. 30 election will go on.

By NANCY A. YOUSSEF
Knight Ridder Newspapers


BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Assassins killed an aide to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential religious leader, the cleric's office said Thursday. The killing was sure to further aggravate tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims as elections scheduled for Jan. 30 draw near.

Sheik Mahmoud al-Madaen, his son and four bodyguards were leaving a mosque late Wednesday night when they were ambushed in Salman Pak, a town southeast of Baghdad.

The sheik was Shiite; the town is predominantly Sunni. All six men were killed.

Shiites have endured several major assaults in the past month, and many suspect that Sunni insurgency groups opposed to the election are leading the attacks. In some cases, Sunni groups have taken responsibility for the violence.

For many, al-Sistani - who has insisted on holding the vote as scheduled despite calls for postponement because of the violent insurgency - has been the face of the elections.

Although he isn't a candidate, his picture appears on posters for the major Shiite party slate, the United Iraqi Alliance, and he has called voting in the elections a religious duty.

After al-Madaen was assassinated, Sistani's representatives said the elections must proceed.

"The election will go on, and it will not be affected by the assassinationof the sheik or by the explosions that happen here and there," an official in al-Sistani's office in Najaf said.

Earlier this month, a car bomber drove through a checkpoint and detonated his explosives near interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's headquarters, killing three people and injuring 12 others. Allawi is running on the Iraqi National Accord slate as a secular Shiite.

Last month, a car bomb struck the home of the leading United Iraqi Alliance candidate, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, killing nine Iraqis. Al-Hakim escaped harm.

Before that, twin car bombs exploded in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala during Friday prayers, killing nearly 70 people.

Also Thursday, 10 assailants sprayed gunfire at a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from a Baghdad hotel Thursday, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction firm working with Americans.

In Fallujah, U.S. officials began handing out $200 per family to returning residents, two months after coalition forces attacked the city in an effort to rid it of insurgents.

The money was to go for reconstruction, but only a fraction of the city's 300,000 people have returned; many have said the city - along with their homes - was destroyed in the attack.

At the city's western entrance, hundreds lined up to collect their cash, which was being handed out by U.S. soldiers. Some thought the money would make for a good start for them; others said it wasn't enough.

Gurjia Faiad, 50, was among those waiting to collect. She said her husband had disappeared during the conflict and is presumed dead.

"I have eight orphan daughters, and my house is destroyed. This amount could help me for this month," she said.

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