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Iraq car bombing toll rises to 82
AFP - Outrage and condemnation have poured forth after Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim political leader and 81 others were killed in a car bombing outside one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, in the worst attack since the start of the US-led occupation.
The United Nations and the White House condemned the attack on the Islamic holy day, and the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim.
Analysts said it would deal a blow to efforts to rebuild the war-shattered country.
The attack injured 229 other people.
Moments earlier, al-Hakim had delivered his weekly sermon in the Tomb of Ali, in the holy city 180km south of Baghdad, party officials in Baghdad and Tehran said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on all groups in Iraq to refrain from violence.
"The Secretary General condemns in the strongest possible terms today's terrorist attack in Najaf, in which the spiritual leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, and many others were killed," Annan's spokesman said in a statement.
"In the difficult days ahead, the Secretary General urges all political and religious groups in Iraq to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from further acts of violence and revenge," the statement said.
US President George W Bush denounced the bombing as "vicious" and said the United States would help hunt down those responsible.
"I strongly condemn the bombing today outside the Imam Ali mosque," he said in a statement from his Texas ranch, where he is on holiday.
"This vicious act of terrorism was aimed at (Hakim), at one of Shi'a Islam's holiest sites, and at the hopes of the people of Iraq for freedom, peace, and reconciliation," he said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell labelled the deadly car bomb "a heinous crime against the Iraqi people and the international community".
The attack came barely a week after a suicide bomber detonated a truckload of explosives outside the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy in Iraq.
The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said the bombing "shows that the enemies of the new Iraq will stop at nothing. They have killed innocent Iraqis. Again they have violated Islam's most sacred places," he said.
For its part, Iran declared three days of mourning for the slain cleric and placed ultimate responsibility for the attack on the "occupation forces".
"The Islamic Republic condemns this blind action and places direct responsibility on the occupation forces that, under international law, are responsible for the maintenance of security in Iraq," said a government statement.
Firebrand Iraqi Shi'ite Imam Moqtada Sadr called for three days of strikes in Iraq after the blast.
"We are calling for the people ... to demonstrate to condemn this crime. We are calling for a three-day strike," Sadr told Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera in an interview from Najaf.
Sadr also lashed out at the Americans, labelling them the greatest enemy in post-war Iraq.
And the son and political adviser of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, brother of the slain ayatollah, said his father may succeed his brother as head of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Mohsen Hakim told the Iranian student news agency ISNA that "Baathists were the main suspects" behind the massive attack "because they had tried on eight different occasions to assassinate him".
Elsewhere in Iraq, there was a small explosion near the entrance to the British forces headquarters in Iraq's main southern city of Basra.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the explosion wrecked two cars but caused no injuries.
Eyewitness Mohamed Hussein said someone had thrown a grenade toward the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that runs along the base, a former palace of Saddam Hussein, "because the people sit on the bank and drink alcohol".
The Najaf bombing was the deadliest in the Middle East since October 23, 1983 when 241 US marines and 58 French soldiers deployed with a multinational force in Lebanon were killed in double truck bombings of their headquarters in Beirut.
In Sardinia, where he was taking a weekend break at the Mediterranean island home of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for "real involvement" by the United Nations in Iraq if the escalating violence there is to be halted.
"We are witnessing an escalation of the violence in Iraq. The spiral is accelerating," he told a news conference.
"What is needed is that the UN does not act as a guarantee, instead it must be really involved in what is going on. The UN does not gloss over, does not cover, others' actions, rather it takes its own decisions in an independent sort of way," Putin added.
Earlier in the day, the White House announced that Bush, faced with a mounting price tag for rebuilding Iraq, had broadened US powers to confiscate assets linked to Saddam Hussein's fallen regime.
In an executive order signed on Thursday, he empowered the US government to seize assets belonging to family members of 55 former top officials in Saddam's government, said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan.
The United States also selected JP Morgan Chase to run the operating consortium for the Trade Bank of Iraq, an official said.
Peter McPherson, director of Economic Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, told reporters in a teleconference from Baghdad that JP Morgan Chase would head the consortium of 13 banks from 13 countries, including the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group based in Melbourne.
©AAP 2003
AFP - Outrage and condemnation have poured forth after Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim political leader and 81 others were killed in a car bombing outside one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, in the worst attack since the start of the US-led occupation.
The United Nations and the White House condemned the attack on the Islamic holy day, and the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim.
Analysts said it would deal a blow to efforts to rebuild the war-shattered country.
The attack injured 229 other people.
Moments earlier, al-Hakim had delivered his weekly sermon in the Tomb of Ali, in the holy city 180km south of Baghdad, party officials in Baghdad and Tehran said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on all groups in Iraq to refrain from violence.
"The Secretary General condemns in the strongest possible terms today's terrorist attack in Najaf, in which the spiritual leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, and many others were killed," Annan's spokesman said in a statement.
"In the difficult days ahead, the Secretary General urges all political and religious groups in Iraq to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from further acts of violence and revenge," the statement said.
US President George W Bush denounced the bombing as "vicious" and said the United States would help hunt down those responsible.
"I strongly condemn the bombing today outside the Imam Ali mosque," he said in a statement from his Texas ranch, where he is on holiday.
"This vicious act of terrorism was aimed at (Hakim), at one of Shi'a Islam's holiest sites, and at the hopes of the people of Iraq for freedom, peace, and reconciliation," he said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell labelled the deadly car bomb "a heinous crime against the Iraqi people and the international community".
The attack came barely a week after a suicide bomber detonated a truckload of explosives outside the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN envoy in Iraq.
The US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, said the bombing "shows that the enemies of the new Iraq will stop at nothing. They have killed innocent Iraqis. Again they have violated Islam's most sacred places," he said.
For its part, Iran declared three days of mourning for the slain cleric and placed ultimate responsibility for the attack on the "occupation forces".
"The Islamic Republic condemns this blind action and places direct responsibility on the occupation forces that, under international law, are responsible for the maintenance of security in Iraq," said a government statement.
Firebrand Iraqi Shi'ite Imam Moqtada Sadr called for three days of strikes in Iraq after the blast.
"We are calling for the people ... to demonstrate to condemn this crime. We are calling for a three-day strike," Sadr told Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera in an interview from Najaf.
Sadr also lashed out at the Americans, labelling them the greatest enemy in post-war Iraq.
And the son and political adviser of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, brother of the slain ayatollah, said his father may succeed his brother as head of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Mohsen Hakim told the Iranian student news agency ISNA that "Baathists were the main suspects" behind the massive attack "because they had tried on eight different occasions to assassinate him".
Elsewhere in Iraq, there was a small explosion near the entrance to the British forces headquarters in Iraq's main southern city of Basra.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the explosion wrecked two cars but caused no injuries.
Eyewitness Mohamed Hussein said someone had thrown a grenade toward the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that runs along the base, a former palace of Saddam Hussein, "because the people sit on the bank and drink alcohol".
The Najaf bombing was the deadliest in the Middle East since October 23, 1983 when 241 US marines and 58 French soldiers deployed with a multinational force in Lebanon were killed in double truck bombings of their headquarters in Beirut.
In Sardinia, where he was taking a weekend break at the Mediterranean island home of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for "real involvement" by the United Nations in Iraq if the escalating violence there is to be halted.
"We are witnessing an escalation of the violence in Iraq. The spiral is accelerating," he told a news conference.
"What is needed is that the UN does not act as a guarantee, instead it must be really involved in what is going on. The UN does not gloss over, does not cover, others' actions, rather it takes its own decisions in an independent sort of way," Putin added.
Earlier in the day, the White House announced that Bush, faced with a mounting price tag for rebuilding Iraq, had broadened US powers to confiscate assets linked to Saddam Hussein's fallen regime.
In an executive order signed on Thursday, he empowered the US government to seize assets belonging to family members of 55 former top officials in Saddam's government, said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan.
The United States also selected JP Morgan Chase to run the operating consortium for the Trade Bank of Iraq, an official said.
Peter McPherson, director of Economic Development for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, told reporters in a teleconference from Baghdad that JP Morgan Chase would head the consortium of 13 banks from 13 countries, including the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group based in Melbourne.
©AAP 2003
