In the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 28, after Iraqi demonstrators set the Iranian cons...
NAJAF, Iraq - In the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 28, after Iraqi demonstrators set the Iranian consulate in the southern holy city of Najaf ablaze, the killings began.
Reuters’ interviews filled in details of that November day, including the lead-up to the killings and the flurry of backroom activity that signaled the end for Abdul Mahdi. Most sources declined to be named out of concern for retribution from the government or armed groups. Under tribal pressure to take a stand against the violence that felled some of their kinsmen, the country’s most prominent Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, ended support for the government, tribal and clerical sources said. That, in turn, spelled the end for Abdul Mahdi.
The first blood on November 28 was shed in Nassiriya, at about 3 a.m., five hours after the military commanders were ordered south. Raad Harbi, a 21-year-old demonstrator who was on the bridge, said they were nearly surrounded by government “special forces” wearing the insignia and uniforms of elite Interior Ministry units. “They came from two directions and deployed snipers to a nearby building to take shots as us.”
They then turned their anger toward the Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim shrine complex next door, dedicated to the founder of an Iran-backed group that fought Saddam in the 1980s, local activists and police said. Skirmishes broke out between demonstrators and shrine guards. Protesters believed that gunmen were holding demonstrators hostage inside, which shrine officials, police and other security sources have denied.
The security sources and about 20 medics and protesters said the gunmen in Najaf were from militia groups with links to Iran and to the shrine itself, which see themselves as defenders of the religious site.
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