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Bush denounces Najaf blast
AFP - US President George W Bush denounced the car bombing that killed Iraq's leading Shi'ite politician in the central city of Najaf and said US forces would help hunt those responsible.
"I strongly condemn the bombing outside the Imam Ali mosque," he said in a statement released here hours after the attack, which killed at least 82 people, including Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, and left some 200 injured.
"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," Bush said in the statement.
He said he had directed US officials in Iraq "to work closely" with Iraqi security officials and Iraq's Governing Council "to determine who committed this terrible attack and bring them to justice."
The US president also offered his "deepest condolences" to the families of the victims, as well as his hopes for a quick recovery to those hurt, and his sympathies to all Iraqis and the world's Shi'ite Muslims.
Hakim, head of the Iran-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was killed moments after he delivered his weekly sermon at the Tomb of Ali in the holy city, 180km south of Baghdad, party officials said in both Baghdad and Tehran.
Bush paid tribute to the slain leader, noting he had been jailed and tortured for his religious beliefs by the regime of Saddam Hussein, and he had spent many years in exile.
"His murder, along with the murder of many innocent men and women gathered for prayer, demonstrates the cruelty and desperation of the enemies of the Iraqi people," said Bush.
"The forces of terror must and will be defeated. The united efforts of Iraqis and the international community will succeed in achieving peace and freedom," said the president.
The attack dealt a blow to US efforts to rebuild the country, 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 UN's top envoy to Iraq.
Separately, US Secretary of State Colin Powell labelled the deadly car bomb "a heinous crime against the Iraqi people and the international community.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the horrific bombing at the Iman Ali mosque in Al Najaf, a sacred religious site and a place of pilgrimage in Iraq," Powell said in a statement.
Earlier, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the perpetrators of this act want the opposite of what the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Governing Council, the coalition, the world community are all working to achieve: peace and freedom in an Iraq governed by Iraqis, free of the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime," he said.
And 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," Bremer said in a statement.
Today's 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.
©AAP 2003
AFP - US President George W Bush denounced the car bombing that killed Iraq's leading Shi'ite politician in the central city of Najaf and said US forces would help hunt those responsible.
"I strongly condemn the bombing outside the Imam Ali mosque," he said in a statement released here hours after the attack, which killed at least 82 people, including Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, and left some 200 injured.
"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," Bush said in the statement.
He said he had directed US officials in Iraq "to work closely" with Iraqi security officials and Iraq's Governing Council "to determine who committed this terrible attack and bring them to justice."
The US president also offered his "deepest condolences" to the families of the victims, as well as his hopes for a quick recovery to those hurt, and his sympathies to all Iraqis and the world's Shi'ite Muslims.
Hakim, head of the Iran-backed Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was killed moments after he delivered his weekly sermon at the Tomb of Ali in the holy city, 180km south of Baghdad, party officials said in both Baghdad and Tehran.
Bush paid tribute to the slain leader, noting he had been jailed and tortured for his religious beliefs by the regime of Saddam Hussein, and he had spent many years in exile.
"His murder, along with the murder of many innocent men and women gathered for prayer, demonstrates the cruelty and desperation of the enemies of the Iraqi people," said Bush.
"The forces of terror must and will be defeated. The united efforts of Iraqis and the international community will succeed in achieving peace and freedom," said the president.
The attack dealt a blow to US efforts to rebuild the country, 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 UN's top envoy to Iraq.
Separately, US Secretary of State Colin Powell labelled the deadly car bomb "a heinous crime against the Iraqi people and the international community.
"I condemn in the strongest terms the horrific bombing at the Iman Ali mosque in Al Najaf, a sacred religious site and a place of pilgrimage in Iraq," Powell said in a statement.
Earlier, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the perpetrators of this act want the opposite of what the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Governing Council, the coalition, the world community are all working to achieve: peace and freedom in an Iraq governed by Iraqis, free of the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime," he said.
And 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," Bremer said in a statement.
Today's 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.
©AAP 2003
