Najaf, Iraq — A furious crowd hacked two clerics to death Thursday in a Shiite Muslim shrine when a meeting meant to be a model of reconciliation in post-Saddam Iraq erupted into a melee between rivals, witnesses said.
The bloodshed underscored how difficult it will be to bridge deep enmities and political rivalries in Iraq as the American military and interim administration try to fill the power vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam's regime.
The U.S. military had been eager to display the meeting at the shrine of Imam Ali, considered by Shiites the successor to the prophet Muhammad. The military flew two helicopters of journalists to the holy city of Najaf to see it. But the group arrived at the site too late to witness what happened.
One of the slain clerics, Haider al-Kadar, was a widely hated Saddam Hussein loyalist, part of the Iraqi leader's ministry of religion. The other was Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a high-ranking Shiite cleric and son of one of the religion's most prominent ayatollahs, or spiritual leaders, who was persecuted by Saddam. Al-Khoei had urged cooperation with U.S. troops.
He had returned April 3 from exile in London to help restore order after the city was taken by U.S. forces. His return was seen as a positive sign by exiled Iraqis that Washington would not rely entirely on local leaders to assume authority. He had accompanied al-Kadar to the meeting in a gesture of reconciliation.
But things went horribly wrong.
"Al-Kadar was an animal," said Adil Adnan al-Moussawi, 25, a witness. "Everybody was afraid of him. The people were shouting that they hated him, that he should not be there."
Apparently feeling threatened -- and to defend al-Kadar -- al-Khoei pulled a gun and fired one or two shots.
Both men were then rushed by the crowd and hacked to death with swords and knives, the witnesses said.
Residents of Najaf shout slogans praising Imam Ali, to whom the town's famous shrine is dedicated, as well as some pro-American slogans, as U.S. soldiers stand by. A different crowd rushed and hacked to death two clerics, one a Saddam Hussein loyalist, during a meeting Thursday at the shrine.
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