Iraqi Papers Monday: Najaf Bloodshed

The clashes in Najaf received prominent coverage in Iraqi papers on Monday. The nature and details of the incident have not yet been fully revealed, but information point to the occurrence of a heavy battle between hundreds of militants hiding in the groves around Najaf and the Iraqi and American forces, a battle that lasted for over twelve hours and resulted in numerous deaths and the downing of an American chopper.

Az-Zaman said that the battle started after dark, and that the gunmen came into Najaf from Hilla, Kut and `Amara (all cities south of Baghdad), the paper added that tanks and helicopters participated in the battle, given the large number of the gunmen (over 250 according to estimates). Az-Zaman attributed to ‘political sources’ that the militants belong to an obscure eschatological cult that follows a religious man called ‘Ahmad Hassan’, and that the objective of the group was to reach the four Shi`a high clerics and assassinate them on the day of `Ashura. Had the group succeeded, that would have meant the elimination of the entire top hierarchy of the Shi`a establishment in Iraq, and the absence of any cleric capable of Ijtihad, or religious interpretation, in the country that has historically been the universal center of Shi`a learning.