Fayyad Calls for Yes Vote on Constitution Muqtada Praises Resistance

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Al-Hayat: Shiite on Shiite disputes sharpened in the Friday prayers sermons this week. Grand Ayatollah Ishaq Fayyad, a junior colleague of Ali Sistani, called for Iraqis to vote "yes" on the constitution, since it was the best that could be hoped for under the circumstances. Followers asked if Fayyad's decree were based on religious law alone

Hundreds of Shiites in Basra mounted a pro-Constitution demonstration on Friday. They were also protesting the nearly a thousand dead in the stampede at Kadhimiyah (Kazimiyah) earlier this week.

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Young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, in his first sermon at Kufa in over a year, launched a vehement critique of the United States and its 'new world order.' He praised "the noble Resistance." Hundreds of his followers put on burial shrouds and marched from Kufa to the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Muqtada said, "The global situation that we live with arose with the collapse of the old Soviet Union, and it is called 'the New World Order.' It is a colonial regime, he said.

Gunmen had shot at two Sunni mosques in the Basra region, and killed a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, leaving 3 others wounded. Mosque preachers warned Iraqis against exploiting the bridge stampede at Kazimiyah, in which around 1000 Iraqis died.

Juan Cole - Informed Comment