Iraqi Civil War

[Sean Osborne]

Unconfirmed- Leading Shi’ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is dead


By Randy Taylor, Independent Analyst








Ayatollah al-Sistani - Dead?
25 December 2006; 0900 Hours ET: We are picking up unconfirmed reports that leading Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is dead. This hasn’t been confirmed yet by any of the major news services at this time. We will continue to monitor this as this could be a major event in the ongoing bloody conflict between Sunni Muslims and Shi’ite Muslims in the Baghdad area and across Iraq.
Sistani was known for his more peaceful approach to resolving disagreement as opposed to his Shi'ite counterpart Muqtada al-Sadr who has been burning Sunni Mosques and terrorizing Sunni neighborhoods in his personal power struggle within Iraq. The Sunni have equally retaliated in bombings, murders and terror.
Current information suggests that the residence of the deceased elderly Shi'ite leader is on lockdown and surrounded by US forces.

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This report from Randy is extremely important in my judgement.

I suspect Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani may have been assassinated, or the reports being seen are indications of a planned assassination. If so, then uncontrollable imminent Sunni-Shi'a civil war might be a virtual certainty for Iraq. Such a civil war would be of immense benefit to the Iranian regime and the goals of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, and the Hojattieh Sect.

All the reports I've seen from last night to just prior to Randy's report today were stating that Ali Sistani had rejected the creation of something referred to as a "U.S.-backed moderate Sunni-Shi'a coalition" within the Iraqi Parliament.

This alliance would have placed the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) with the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party and the Kurdistan Alliance in the same political camp to effect an isolation of the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr (Sadrists). In effect this was a political-tactical attempt to remove the Iranian influence in the Iraqi Parliament.

Heads Up.

[Phil Fiord]

Thanks for that report Sean. Merry Christmas as well. This really is a 24/7 bit of work in gathering the real news.