Insurgents Bomb Shrine, Killing Seven as Iraqi Campaign Begins
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A bomb targeting a prominent Shiite cleric killed seven people outside one of southern Iraq’s holiest shrines yesterday as campaigning began for Iraq’s first post-Saddam election – a vote that is going ahead despite suicide attacks and assassinations by Sunni insurgents.
The attack in the heartland of Iraqi’s majority Shiite population wounded a cleric, Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee, and was a stark reminder of the risks for the six-week campaign leading to a January 30 vote for a 275-member National Assembly.
Unlike most Western countries, where election campaigns kick off with press blitzes and rallies, there was little fanfare in Iraq, particularly in the capital, where many fear that large gatherings in public places could be invitations for insurgent attacks.
The campaigning began as a government official said Saddam Hussein’s notorious right-hand man, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” will be the first among 12 former regime members to appear at an initial investigative court hearing next week to face charges for crimes allegedly committed during Saddam’s 35-year dictatorship.
Formal indictments could be issued next month – just ahead of the elections.
On the final day of candidate registration, Prime Minister Allawi, a secular Shiite and Washington favorite, announced his 240-member list of candidates, pitting him against the slate embraced by Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. About 90 parties and political movements have applied to be represented on ballots.
Heading the al-Sistani backed United Iraqi Alliance list is Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and chief of its armed wing, the Iran-based Badr Brigade, during Saddam’s rule.
With the threatened Sunni boycott, the lists submitted make Mr. Allawi and Mr. al-Hakim the leading contenders to take top jobs in Iraq’s next government.
In the election, each faction will win a number of seats in the assembly proportional to the percentage of votes it gets nationwide – meaning the highest-listed candidates on each roster are most likely to be elected. The groups ending up strongest in the assembly will be in a powerful position since the body will elect a president and two deputies, who will nominate the prime minister. The assembly will also draw up a new constitution.
Shiites make up 60% of Iraq’s 26 million population and are expected to dominate the polls. Such an outcome worries some secular Shiites here, along with neighboring Sunni-dominated countries and America, who are wary of a Shiite-run Iraq growing closer to its eastern neighbor, Iran.
“Iran will not be indifferent to Iraq’s future, and it cannot ignore the country because any developments there would have an impact on the internal affairs of Iran,”Hasan Kazemi Qomi,Iran’s top diplomat in Baghdad, told his country’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.
In a move likely to inflame election tensions, the Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, accused Iran and Syria of cooperating with former Saddam security operatives and Iraq’s top terror figure, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Iran, Mr. Shaalan said, is the “no. 1 enemy.”
“They are fighting us because we want to build freedom and democracy and they want to build an Islamic dictatorship and have turbaned clerics to rule in Iraq,” the defense minister said.
Iran and Syria reject such claims.
Mr.Shaalan also sharply criticized the United Iraqi Alliance for links to Iran and described a key coalition member, nuclear physicist Hussain al-Shahristani, as the “leader of an Iranian list.”
His remarks appeared timed to coincide with election announcements by Mr. Allawi and President al-Yawer, who also filed a list of about 80 elections candidates. Mr.Allawi, a secular Shiite, and Mr. al-Yawer, a Sunni leader supported by Mr. Shaalan, are obvious political opponents of conservative Shiites like Mr. al-Hakim with close affiliations to Iran.
Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni elder statesman, heads a list of 70 candidates. His group, like the Iraqi Islamic Party, decided to contest the polls and ensure Sunni participation despite boycott calls by some leading clerics.
Lieutenant General Lance Smith, deputy commander of the American Central Command, said in a briefing that there were indications that many Sunnis want to take part in the vote.
“We just don’t know how large that is or how much that will grow as we move toward January; nor do we know how effective the intimidation campaign will be as it continues,” he said.
Mr. Smith said security problems were limited to only a few of Iraq’s 18 provinces. “In 14 of those provinces we could probably have elections tomorrow,” he said.
An al-Sistani spokesman said the Karbala attack was an assassination attempt on the cleric’s representative in that city, Sheik al-Karbalayee, who was wounded in the blast at the western gate of the gold-domed Imam Hussein Shrine. Seven people died and 31 were wounded, a hospital official said. “Targeting him is part of a series of attempts to create sectarian strife in Iraq by targeting the Shiite symbols,” said United Iraqi Alliance candidate Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer.Rebels want to provoke Shiites into reacting “so that the political process would collapse,” he said.