NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 29 — A powerful car bomb tore through a crowded street next to Iraq's most sacred Shiite Muslim shrine today, killing at least 95 people, including an influential cleric, and deepening tensions among a Shiite majority already riven by factional disputes.
The bomb was detonated soon after Friday prayers ended, a moment when the narrow streets and dun-hued markets of the holy city were teeming with pilgrims, worshippers and shoppers. It appeared to have been aimed at Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, the son of one of Iraq's greatest clerics and the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who had returned to Iraq in May after 23 years in exile.
The blast — the third car bombing in Iraq in 23 days — blackened one wall of the shrine, which was last damaged during the Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Tan bricks were blasted off, and four chunks of tiles were missing from a portico. Houses and shops all along a colonnade shook, and some collapsed into piles of rubble. Windows shattered, and at least six cars littered the street, their paint seared off.
The death of Hakim, 64, the most influential Iraqi cleric openly allied with the U.S.-led occupation, dealt a severe blow to U.S. efforts to build a representative postwar government. While long funded and supported by Iran, Hakim had appeared to moderate his views on an Islamic state since his return to Iraq. He also had the final say in bringing his movement — the best-organized among Shiite groups — into the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council this summer.
L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq, blamed the attack on "the evil face of terrorism." "The bombing today in Najaf shows again that the enemies of the new Iraq will stop at nothing," Bremer, who is currently in Washington, said in a statement.
Hakim's death seems sure to complicate the growing rivalry for leadership of Iraq's Shiite majority, which many believe holds the key to Iraq's stability. U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed worry that turmoil among the Shiites could delay or even derail reconstituting a government and writing a constitution — efforts already beset by attacks on occupation troops, rampant crime and growing cleavages along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Shiite factions are divided primarily over the U.S. occupation. Iraq's senior clerics — men known as grand ayatollahs who carry great influence — have tacitly supported the occupation, younger, more militant clergy have gathered around Muqtada Sadr, 30, have demanded an American withdrawal.
On Sunday, a bomb planted outside the house of Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed Hakim, the uncle of the cleric killed today, killed three people in Najaf. The elder Hakim was only slightly wounded. Some in the city suggested Sadr's men were responsible, although they denied any role.
But in the crowds today, most blamed loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein — whose repressive government assassinated and executed hundreds of clergy over three decades — and ruled out the possibility of a co-religionist damaging the shrine of a man Shiites believe was the heir of the prophet Muhammed.
"They violated the sanctity of Imam Ali. It's not possible a Shiite could do such a thing. They respect Imam Ali," said Jamil Hashim, 33, who was helping control crowds inside the mosque when the bomb detonated.
Others blamed U.S. forces for failing to bring security to a country that many complain is adrift and lawless.
"It's the Americans who have created chaos. It's the Americans who are responsible for the lack of security," said Mohammed Aboud, 23. "They're not finding a solution, and they're not letting us make a solution."
Today's bombing left a panorama of misery and devastation unparalleled since the fall of Hussein's government on April 9. The brick facades of shops were sheared away. Cars were flipped and hurled onto the sidewalk. Burned, mangled and dismembered bodies littered the street, trampled as others ran in confusion and panic for safety.
Into the night, lit by a crescent moon ordinarily regarded as a good omen, desperate residents dug with pick axes and bare hands into piles of brick and debris. Shouting "God is greatest," they searched for survivors, more out of piety than hope.
Thousands had gathered in the gold-domed shrine of Imam Ali to hear Hakim, who had led traditional Friday prayers there since the summer. As in past sermons, he called for Islamic unity. Witnesses said the bomb, about 15 yards away, exploded just after he left the mosque and got into a blue sports-utility vehicle, parked behind a convoy of at least four other cars.
"It sounded like a missile landing," said Ghalib Abed, who was working in a fabric store on the corner and was cut on his arms, legs and shoulder by flying glass. "I couldn't feel anything. It was though I was unconscious. I just ran and ran."
Qassim Jabr had arrived, as he did every Friday, to sell peanuts from a cart near the shrine, a sprawling complex of tan and blue brick with four intricate porticos of turquoise tile. He left the cart to pray, and when he moved toward the exit, he saw a bright flash of light, followed by darkness. He was knocked unconscious, then awoke to someone pulling him into a taxi.
"I saw arms, I saw people and their clothes were gone," he said from Najaf's Teaching Hospital, where thousands had gathered to donate blood. "I saw women and children covered with blood."
Outside the mosque, vendors' wooden stalls lay splintered in blackened pools along with charred metal and brick. On one sidewalk, men searched with their hands through shards of glass for silver rings blown from a display case. Pieces of cars were hurled through restaurants and storefronts frequented by Iranian and Indian pilgrims, who, like all Shiites, seek to visit the shrine at least once in their lifetimes.
By dusk, thousands of residents, tribesmen and clerics milled around the shrine, their bodies pressed together in an impromptu wake. Some stretched to see the damage, and others clapped their hands in a show of resignation. Many of their faces were grim, with a look of shock and anxiety that suggested more trouble ahead, although the city remained largely calm.
For hours, many in the crowd believed Hakim was still alive. Every so often, his followers surged through the crowds, carrying posters of his aquiline face and gray beard. "God's prayers on Mohammed," they shouted.
But at 8 p.m., the loudspeaker at the mosque announced his death. "We are from God, and to God we return," the voice said.
At that moment, a hush fell across the crowd. One man started sobbing uncontrollably. Another put his head on a foam cooler. Along the curb, men cried into their soiled robes or sobbed into their hands.
"The assassination of Hakim is the beginning," said Mohammed Aboud, as he heard the news. "It will only get worse."
Doctors at the Teaching Hospital, Najaf's largest, said 95 bodies had arrived at the morgue and estimated the number of wounded at more than 200. By evening, hundreds had gathered outside the hospital gates, offering to give blood. They were eventually turned away, although doctors complained of shortages of antibiotics and intravenous fluids.
A U.S. military armored vehicle was parked outside, and a translator began reading the names of dead and wounded: "Aida Ali Abbas, Mohammed Nasser, Abbas Hussein Ali, Ali Abbas, Zahra Hussein Ali Yusuf, Hussein Abed Jawad." At one point, a man started wailing and pounding his forehead. He collapsed and was carried off by friends and relatives.
To the mourners, Hakim's death — as a martyr and as a holy fighter, in the words of the loudspeaker — fit almost seamlessly into a Shiite narrative of suffering and martyrdom that began with the death of Ali's son, Hussein, on a 7th century battlefield. "When we love a cleric and when we follow him, they always try to kill him," said Ali Hadi.
The aftermath of Hakim's death reverberated across Iraq.
Thousands left their homes in Sadr City, a sprawling neighborhood that is home to the majority of Baghdad's Shiites, and poured into the streets to march to the headquarters of the Supreme Council. They carried Hakim's pictures and unfurled a banner that read, "Loyalty to the Hakim family, we condemn the cowardly attack." Men and boys, beating their chests in a ritual known as lutm, shouted, "Mohammed, after you, we are orphans." Others cried, "We will not forget Mohammed Bakir Hakim as long as we live."
In other rallies, hundreds chanted, "There is no god but God. The Baathists are the enemies of God." Across the city, hundreds visited to mosques to pray or marched to neighborhood worship halls.
Sadr's office in Najaf issued a statement urging its followers to remain calm and calling for peaceful marches in all Iraqi cities "to demonstrate our unity to the world." It declared a day of mourning and a three-day strike to protest Hakim's death.
Staff writer Theola Labbe in Baghdad contributed to this report.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63157-2003Aug29.htmlE-mail this article