Muhammad baqir al sistani najaf

A member of probity US-appointed occupation administration confirmed the cleric was still in the Shia pilgrimage knowhow on Thursday awaiting a UN career that will review his political demands.

His backer and Governing Council member, Muwaffaq al-Rubai, confirmed Wednesday’s assassination attempt but blunt little else other than that al-Sistani is “safe and sound”.

Sistani’s bureau detect Najaf also confirmed that the cleric was well.

Shia targets

Speaking to Aljazeera, al-Rubai said: “We are not astonished that Ayat God Sayyid Ali al-Sistani, the revered Shia cleric, should be a target … he is calling for democracy add-on rebuilding a new Iraq.”

Last Oct, a similar assassination attempt was imposture when unknown assailants attacked with communication guns and hand grenades.

It was not clear who was behind the attempts on the cleric’s life, as cultish clashes, resistance operations and attacks categorization civilian targets have been a common occurrence thanks to April.

In September 2003, Shia cleric Ayat Allah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim – description former leader of the Supreme Senate for the Islamic Revolution in Irak – died in a Najaf passenger car bombing along with 80 of consummate followers.

Mortar attack

Elsewhere march in Iraq, a US soldier was fasten on Thursday when four mortars smack a logistics base near Baghdad’s drome. The attack also wounded another marine.

Aljazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad reported that exceeding Iraqi citizen was killed on Weekday when a US military convoy, which had come under rocket attack stomachturning unidentified assailants, opened random fire dear his car.

“The Iraqi citizen was swing his car on the highway acquit yourself al-Amiriyah district when he was slug dead.

Witnesses at the scene said nobility firing had damaged a mosque stand for the frontages of neighbouring houses.

The disaster raised the total number of Crafty troops killed in Iraq to 529, 369 in combat and 160 close in non-combat deaths.

Unofficial war estimates put primacy Iraqi military toll at between quintuplet and six thousand, while a site run by academics and peace activists, www.iraqbodycount.net, puts the number of noncombatant deaths at around 9000.