Region | Iraq
Gunmen kill Shiite cleric in southern Iraqi city of Basra
Gunmen killed a Shiite cleric and outspoken critic of sectarian militias in an ambush on a car that also carried the victim's wife, mother and sister, police said on Sunday.
- AP
- Published: 14:51 August 24, 2008
Baghdad: Gunmen killed a Shiite cleric and outspoken critic of sectarian militias in an ambush on a car that also carried the victim's wife, mother and sister, police said on Sunday.
The cleric, Haider Al Saymari, was killed on Saturday in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. His relatives were not harmed, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information.
Al Saymari, 38, was a follower of Iraq's top Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, a moderate. Al Saymari was known as a critic of extremists and armed groups in Basra, particularly the Mahdi Army of radical Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr.
Al Saymari had lived and worked in the holy Iranian city of Qom since 1991, but returned to his native Iraq to take part in a Shiite religious ceremony earlier this month.
On Saturday, he was driving back to Iran. In downtown Basra, gunmen firing from a car ambushed Al Saymari's van which also carried his relatives. Al Saymari was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
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