Hundreds of thousands mourn assassinated cleric

[Aidoneus]

Hundreds of thousands mourn assassinated cleric
AP
31 August 2003

More than 300,000 mourners today began a two- day funeral march from Baghdad to Najaf, the holy city where a leading Shiite Muslim cleric was among 85 killed in Friday's car bombing.

They beat their chests and called for vengeance as they slowly followed a flatbed truck carrying a symbolic coffin for Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al- Hakim. Authorities said they could only find the ayatollah's hand, watch, wedding band and a pen.

"Our revenge will be severe on the killers," read one of the many banners carried by mourners.

"Saddam and Bush will not humiliate us," read another.

--snip--

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=438778

[Athame]

1. A lot left to the imagination

No pictures of this crowd of 300,000 wending their way 100 miles to Najef. I guess that's because anyone who takes pictures over there is in danger of getting shot by the US military.

Just watched two Sunday morning news broadcasts CNN and NBC and not a mention of this march, hardly a mention of Iraq, except as a problem for the pResident, "who returns from his working vacation this week." :grr:

Is there ANY value at all to watching broadcast news anymore?

[Aidoneus]

3. a couple from Yahoo

Subtlely ominous sign from a couple of the other pics in the series--it seems that Hakim's "Badr Brigade" have brought their weapons back out in public.. a couple months back the armed wing of SAIRI was more or less shelved for a period after Hakim's brother joined the Iraqi Governing Council.

(on edit--link to the full series I mentioned:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030831/168/54h78.html
Some of the other pics in the series are not strictly related to this march, a few from Spain, a couple about the Pope, a few pictures of the Iranian leaders' mourning of Hakim's death, a few showing a Palestinian family grieving for their daughter recently murdered by Israel, etc... but many from the set show different shots of this march, though spread out in the series.)

[Athame]

7. Still, one has to be a newshound to find these

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/030831/168/54hgn.html&e=9&ncid=

Don't forget to rate them at Yahoo.

[karlschneider]

5. MSNBC did show some footage and here's a pic from cnn website

[NNN0LHI]

2. What could our 150,000 troops do against 300,000 well armed Shiite's?

And remember only a small portion of those 150,000 American soldiers are trigger pullers. Most are support personel. It would be a massacre.

Don

[karlschneider]

4. It wouldn't take much to turn this into an inferno.

Hard to imagine someone on one side or the other won't lose it...
:eyes:

[Athame]

6. In 120 degree heat, a small spark would do

But these pictures are chilling, nonetheless.

:scared:

[JNelson6563]

8. this is so going to bite us

right in the ass. Unfortunately the "teethmarks" will be on our soldiers and the BFEE will remain safely tucked away while their supporters chant "support the troops".

Julie