Holy Najaf: City Where Politics and Spirituality Coincide May Hold Key

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Holy Najaf: City Where Politics and Spirituality Coincide May Hold Key to Iraq's Future
By Hamza Hendawi Associated Press Writer
Published: Dec 27, 2003

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - In this holy city of the dead, the living and the ebb and flow of countless pilgrims, politics and spirituality intersect in ways that could shape the new Iraq.

In the ashes of Saddam's regime, Najaf's robed and elderly Shiite Muslim clerics hold sway, and the Iraq that will emerge could well fall somewhere between its Muslim neighbors - clergy-ruled Iran and secular Turkey.

For a city that has long loathed Saddam as its tormentor and executioner, seeing the former dictator humbled in U.S. custody was a cherished dream come true.

But Najaf is careful not to flaunt its new place as the spiritual capital of Iraq's Shiite majority and the seat of its newfound political power. It did not clamor for wholesale revenge after a bomb killed at least 80 people in August, including Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, one of the most revered Shiite religious leaders, and it seems at pains not to gloat over Saddam's capture.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAT0RLZPOD.html