Slain Saleem 'had a vision'

2004-05-17 16:46

Baghdad - The Iraqi Governing Council chief killed in a car bombing in Baghdad on Monday was a prominent writer and political activist who had survived prison under ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and then more than two decades in exile before returning to try to rebuild his country.

Abdel-Zahraa Othman, better known by the name he adopted in exile, Izzadine Saleem, was among nine Iraqis, including a bomber, who were killed in a car-bombing at the gate to a US-controlled zone in Baghdad. An Iraqi Governing Council member since its establishment last July, Saleem was to have held the council's presidency, which rotates monthly, until the end of May.

As council president, Saleem was the highest-ranking Iraqi official killed during the US-led occupation. His death occurred about six weeks before the United States plans to transfer power to Iraqis.

Saleem had fought Saddam with words. He had worked in neighbouring Iran writing pamphlets and other materials for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an umbrella group that was the largest anti-Saddam force and had been based in Iran. Saleem also edited several newspapers and magazines and wrote historical commentaries, novels and an award-winning study of the Prophet Muhammad's daughter.

Founding member

Saleem was born in 1940 in the southern port city of Basra. He was a history teacher in Basra when he became one of the founding members of Dawa, a Shiite Muslim party that opposed Saddam's Sunni Muslim regime. Members of Iraq's Shiite majority were repressed by Saddam and have seized upon his ouster as a chance to take what they see as their rightful share of political power here.

Dawa later split over ideological issues into three parties. Saleem led one of them, the Islamic Dawa Movement, which was a member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Saleem was imprisoned by Saddam from 1974-78, said Harith Ibrahim, a former Iraqi opposition figure still in exile in Britain who knew Saleem. Soon after his release, Saleem fled to neighbouring Kuwait and later to predominantly Shiite Iran.

He had been active in the Shiite community in Kuwait. Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Mehri, a senior Shiite cleric in Kuwait, told reporters on Monday that he cried when he heard news of the death of his friend Saleem.

Adopted name

Al-Mehri said his friend adopted the name Izzadine Saleem to evade Iraqi agents he feared would pursue him. He signed his writings by that name and became widely known by it.

Saleem was a well-known Islamic writer who 30 years ago was awarded a prize by clerics in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf for his book about Muhammad's daughter, said al-Mehri, adding he last saw Saleem six years ago when he visited Kuwait.

"He had a moderate and pragmatic character, not violent, not extremist. He was loved by Shiites and Sunnis alike and he was close to martyr Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim," al-Mehri said.

Al-Hakim, founder of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was killed in a car bomb in Najaf in August. Al-Hakim's death, like Saleem's, was blamed on shadowy forces opposed to the US occupation.

Traitor and mercenary

A previously unknown group, the Arab Resistance Movement, posted an online claim of responsibility for killing Saleem, calling him a "traitor and mercenary" - echoing the suspicion with which some Iraqis view those perceived as owing their positions to the Americans.

"The Iraqi leaders are the main targets of those terrorists and antidemocratic forces, and we will not be intimidated from continuing our path to build a new Iraq," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told a forum on regional issues being held in neighbouring Jordan on Monday. Zebari noted that another council member, Aquila al-Hashimi, died five days after gunmen in a pickup truck ambushed her car in September.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq, said in a statement that Saleem "strove for the downfall of the former regime and the birth of a democratic Iraq."

"The terrorists who are seeking to destroy Iraq have struck a cruel blow with this vile act today," Bremer said. "But they will be defeated. The Iraqi people will ensure that his vision of a democratic, free and prosperous Iraq will become a reality."

March of glory

In a statement read to reporters, Saleem's successor as head of the governing council, Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, pledged the council would "not deviate from the march to which (Saleem) devoted his life - the march of glory, happiness and freedom for our people - the march toward building a democratic, federal, plural and unified Iraq."

While others spoke of Saleem's moderation, Haroun Mohammed, an Iraqi journalist living in exile in Britain, said Saleem's followers in Basra have been accused of carrying out several killings of Sunni clerics, forcing women in government offices and schools to wear headscarves, killing of some Christians who sell alcohol and killing of some leading Baath party members.

Saleem is survived by four sons and four daughters.

Associated Press Writers Salah Nasrawi and Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report from Cairo, Egypt.

- SAPA