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5 fire on police in rescue bid
02/05/2003 13:07 - (SA)
Najaf - Armed men attacked a police station here because they mistakenly believed two men arrested over the murder last month of a leading pro-Western Shi'ite cleric were being held there, police said on Friday.
The five assailants opened fire early Friday on the police station in this southern Iraqi holy city, where Sayyed Abdul Majid al-Khoei was killed last month a week after returning from exile, police commissioner Abdel Zahra Radi said.
Radi said two people had been arrested in Najaf on Thursday, adding that they were among 16 people accused of the murder. He said the two suspects were being held in the headquarters of the self-proclaimed governor of the city.
The attackers retreated after a firefight, he said, adding that no police officers were injured.
Khoei was stabbed and shot to death on April 10 by members of an "extremist" Shi'ite group at the site of Imam Ali's tomb, Najaf's most sacred shrine, a journalist accompanying the cleric at the time of the attack told AFP.
Abdul Majid was the son of the late Ayatollah Abolqassem al-Khoei, one of the main leaders of Iraq's Shi'ite community during the 1991 Gulf War, who died in 1992 under house arrest.
There had been speculation that Khoei, who had called for Shi'ite co-operation with the United States, had gone back to Najaf with help from US forces, and that his return signalled a US attempt to promote a "pro-American" current among Iraq's majority Shi'ite community as Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed.
- SAPA
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