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Your support makes all the difference.More than 300,000 mourners today began a two-day funeral march from Baghdad to Najaf, the holy city where a leading Shiite Muslim cleric was among 85 killed in Friday's car bombing.
More than 300,000 mourners today began a two-day funeral march from Baghdad to Najaf, the holy city where a leading Shiite Muslim cleric was among 85 killed in Friday's car bombing.
They beat their chests and called for vengeance as they slowly followed a flatbed truck carrying a symbolic coffin for Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Authorities said they could only find the ayatollah's hand, watch, wedding band and a pen.
"Our revenge will be severe on the killers," read one of the many banners carried by mourners.
"Saddam and Bush will not humiliate us," read another.
Red and white roses were laid on the coffin and a large portrait of the cleric was placed at its front.
The procession began at the al-Kadhimiyah Shrine, one of Baghdad's most sacred Shiite sites, and was expected to grow as it weaves its way more than 100 miles south, stopping at holy sites in Karbala before arriving at the blast site, Najaf's Imam Ali Shrine, for the funeral on Tuesday.
Police detained two Iraqis and two Saudis shortly after the Friday attack and then a further 15 suspects, said a senior police official in Najaf. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports. The remainder are Iraqis and Saudis, the official said.
Initial information shows the foreigners entered Iraq from neighboring Kuwait, Syria and Jordan, the official said, adding that they belong to the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.
"They are all connected to al-Qa'ida," the official said.
Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction. Based in Saudi Arabia, its followers show little tolerance for non-Wahhabi Sunnis and Shiites.
The bomb at the shrine — the burial place of the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad — was made from the same type of materials used in the truck bombing at the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 23 people, and the Jordanian Embassy car bomb, which killed 19, the Iraqi official said.
Hospital officials said 85 people died in the shrine bombing. Earlier tolls were reduced after some deaths were found to have been reported twice.
In response to the bombing, a highly respected Shiite cleric suspended his membership in the US-chosen Iraqi interim Governing Council, citing a lack of security.
Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum said that his return to the council depended on the US-led coalition's handing security matters to Iraqis, so that Muslim shrines could be under Islamic protection.
"This act has pushed me to postpone my membership in the governing council because it can't do anything concerning the security situation," he said.
In the latest sabotage, an explosion and fire damagedk the pipeline carrying oil from Iraq's northern Kirkuk fields to Turkey. The blaze further delayed resumption of the vital link which costs Iraqis an estimated $7 million each day it is out of operation. The blast was the fourth to hit the line since it briefly reopened earlier this month.
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