Newsday.com
By Borzou Daragahi
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
August 30, 2003, 9:58 PM EDT
Najaf, Iraq -- Iraqis here arrested at least four men Saturday in the bombing that killed Iraq's top Shia Muslim cleric. One report said 19 men linked to the al-Qaida network, many of them foreign Arabs, had been rounded up.
U.S. military forces had four men in custody who were initially picked up by Iraqi police or local residents. A senior Iraqi investigator quoted by the Associated Press said those four -- two Iraqis and two Saudis -- gave information that led to the arrest of 15 others. Those detained also included Kuwaitis and Palestinians, the official said.
The Iraqi investigator said the suspects were adherents of the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, a movement that dominates Saudi Arabia and that has energized Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida movement. But U.S. officials did not immediately confirm those details.
<snip>
Many Shias so far have been tolerant of the U.S.-led occupation, largely because the Americans toppled Hussein's Baath Party regime, a great oppressor of Shias. But they blamed America for failing to establish security in Iraq and letting the bombing take place. Some young mourners chanted, "Down with America, down with Israel and down with Baathists."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wonaja0831,0,7978363.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines