BASRA, Iraq - An aide of rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr on Friday lashed out at Iraq’s Shiite Muslim spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for refusing to make public pronoucements on the inteirm government.
**“Sistani has to talk and not to keep silent or his silence will be taken the wrong way. Some top clerics in Iran are talking about that,” Sheikh Assad al-Basri told worshippers in this southern city. **
“I’m not accusing Grand Ayatollah Sistani. All I’m saying is that wrong attitudes should be corrected,” said the head of Sadr’s office in Basra.
Showing pictures of Sadr supporters allegedly being tortured by Iraqi police, Basri compared the government to that of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
“It’s like the beginning of a new Saddam-type era. This infidel government does not represent the Iraqi people, therefore it is the duty of every good citizen to work to topple it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdulmahdi al-Karbalai, Sistani’s representative in the holy city of Karbala, called for moral, ethical, political and administrative reform to allow Iraq to embrace stability and progress.
“New laws (need to) ensure honest leaders run the country, without abusing power for selfish gain … or terrorising people,” he said in a sermon, stressing that it was his personal view and not that of the elderly ayatollah.
Outside the Grand Mosque in Kufa, where militiamen loyal to Sadr were holed up for months before Sistani ordered them out, a representative of the radical cleric denounced its closure before up to 1,000 worshippers.
“I denounce the shutting of the Kufa mosque. We should exert every effort possible to save Moqtada Sadr as he is a God-fearing man trying to serve the Iraqi people,” said Sayed Hashim Raghif.
Sadr aide criticises Sistani for silence on Iraqi politics
sistani is very strange character leaving the country when the onslaught of kufa began almost timed to perfection you could say, then returning all of sudden to end situation. Not saying anything about the puppet regime in Iraq, What kind of game is he playing?