Iraqi cleric calls on rebels to give up arms

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s senior Shiite Muslim religious figure called on the country’s controversial militias to disarm Thursday in one of the most overt forays into politics and policy by the influential clerical leadership in the seminary city of Najaf.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Iranian-born religious leader regarded as the Shiite majority’s most powerful moral voice, called for a government of technocrats rather than political loyalists or sectarian interests and said that only government forces should be permitted to carry weapons on the streets.

“Weapons must be in the hands of government security forces that should not be tied to political parties but to the nation,” said al-Sistani in a statement released by his Najaf office after he met with the country’s new designated prime minister. “The first task for the government is fighting insecurity and putting an end to the terrorist acts that threaten innocents with death and kidnapping.”

Al-Sistani’s views seemed to echo the statements of U.S. leaders who are concerned with stemming the tit-for-tat violence and chaos attributed to the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency and Shiite militias so that American-led military forces can begin withdrawing from Iraq.

But al-Sistani’s overt political language alarmed many secular and Sunni Arab Iraqis worried about an increased involvement of powerful Shiite clerics in matters of state.

Al-Sistani’s statement followed a visit to his home in Najaf by Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite political party leader. Al-Maliki came to solicit al-Sistani’s views in the midst of trying to form a government, reinforcing a growing relationship between majority Shiite politicians in Baghdad and their religious counterparts in Najaf.

Al-Sistani, the most senior of the four senior Shiite clerics in Najaf, has weighed in on political matters before, notably in demanding in 2003 that elections for a national government be held before an Iraqi constitution was drafted.

But coming at a time of sensitive discussions over the makeup of the Iraqi Cabinet and on the future status of armed political groups, his statement Thursday was among his bluntest addressing contemporary politics. A cleric close to al-Sistani acknowledged that the statement signaled a new role for the Shiite clergy, that of “monitoring” the performance of the next government and weighing in, perhaps more frequently, on broad policy issues.

“The marjayiah (senior clergy) intends to interfere in some issues,” Sheikh Abu Mohammad Baghdadi, a Najaf cleric, said in an interview.