Shia mourners demand end to US occupation

Tens of thousands of mourners turned the funeral service for the murdered Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim yesterday into a powerful show of defiance against the US-led military occupation.

Crowds of Shia Muslims marched through the holy city of Najaf demanding the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

As the mourners gathered for the funeral of Ayatollah Hakim, who was killed by a car bomb on Friday along with 124 others, there was more violence in Baghdad. A car bomb exploded near the Iraqi police headquarters, killing a police officer and injuring 15 others.

The blast, in the car park next to the main building, was close to the office of the police chief, Hassan Ali. He was away from his desk at the time.

It was the latest in a series of car bombings that appear to be targeting those, whether Iraqi or foreign, who are working alongside the US-led occupation force.

US troops meanwhile suffered three more fatalities; two soldiers died when their jeep hit a landmine and a third killed in a helicopter accident.

Mindful of the increase in violence, the US administrator, Paul Bremer, said yesterday that the coalition was looking to devolve authority quickly to a new Iraqi cabinet appointed on Monday.

"We should find ways quickly to give Iraq and Iraqis more responsibility for security," he said, adding that as the new ministers settled into their positions, "the advisers from the coalition will not only yield authority, we will thrust authority".

Yet that may not be enough for the people who thronged in Najaf yesterday for Ayatollah Hakim's funeral.

His brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who sits on Iraq's US-appointed governing council, laid the blame for Friday's atrocity at the feet of the American-led force. "The occupation force is primarily responsible for the pure blood that was spilt in holy Najaf," he said.

"Iraq must not remain occupied and the occupation must end so that we can build Iraq as God wants us to do."

Many in the crowd gathered at the site of the blast, the deadliest attack in Iraq since the end of the war. Several buildings were destroyed, huge craters were carved out of the road and shrapnel had scarred the wall of the Imam Ali shrine.

At the head of the funeral procession a flatbed truck carried a large coffin, draped in black and covered in flowers. Mourners pressed up to the lorry, passing scarves of cloth forward through the crowd to have them touch the casket in a mark of veneration.

The blast was so powerful that little of the cleric's body could be recovered. His remains were buried in a plot set aside for those killed in a Shia uprising against the British in 1920.

Yesterday's crowd took on a more overtly political tone than when the funeral procession left Baghdad on Sunday.

Organised groups of young men led chants criticising the US and describing the ayatol lah as the "Friday martyr". One group carried a sign reading: "The invasion forces carry all the responsibility for the killing of Syed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and they must depart our country at once."

Officials in the ayatollah's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), believe forces loyal to Saddam Hussein were responsible for the attack. Others have suggested that Sunni extremists might also have been involved.

US marines, who control the area around Najaf, withdrew from the city centre several weeks ago to avoid inflaming religious sensitivities. After Friday's bombing, a new Iraqi militia has been formed to protect the shrine in Najaf, the holy shrine protection force.

Dozens of armed men wearing white shirts and carrying identification badges patrolled the city in an unprecedented security crackdown yesterday. Most of the gunmen have been taken from the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of Sciri, which maintains close links with Iran, where the late ayatollah spent 23 years in exile. Party officials said they had pressed the American military to allow such a militia weeks ago, but were refused. The US says it is willing to hand over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, but first it wants to see a trained police force and army.

Many in the crowd spoke forcefully of a desire for revenge against Ba'ath party members in their communities. "After Hakim has gone it means there can be no more Ba'athists. I want my revenge," said Qais Mohammed Radi, a member of the local council in the nearby town of Kut, who was one of many bussed in for the funeral. "Hakim was the crown on our head, the symbol of our revolution. We are ready to kill all the Ba'athists in revenge for his death."

Yesterday's funeral procession will have given the US-led authority in Baghdad one of the most compelling warnings of the vast power and deep frustration of Iraq's Shia majority.