Najaf Reception Allawi – Shoes, Stones & Tomatoes

Crowd pelts Allawi at shrine

A crowd hurling shoes, stones and tomatoes has prompted Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, to cut short a visit to Iraq’s holiest Shia shrine during a campaign trip to the city of Najaf.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is chased from an Iraqi mosque in the holy city of Najaf, in what he says was an apparent attempt on his life. Allawi and aides were not injured and left the compound in vehicles.

A spokeswoman for Allawi, a secular Shia, said she had no information on the incident but confirmed that Allawi, who is challenging the ruling Shia Islamist Alliance bloc at next week’s parliamentary election, had been in Najaf on Sunday.

A police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large crowd of worshippers at the Imam Ali mosque hurled sandals and shoes at Allawi – a grave insult in the Iraqi culture.

A second police officer said some of Allawi’s bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd that threw stones, sticks, tomatoes and other projectiles at him. Police intervened to break up the disturbance, he said.

Al-Sadr supporters

Both policemen said they believed that supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric, were responsible for the disturbances, though evidence for this was unclear.

“When Allawi entered the shrine, a few people, believed to be Sadrists, picked up batons and threatened to attack him,” the police captain said.

Al-Sadr supporters were said to be
responsible for the attack in Najaf  
AFP/Qassem Zein

“His American and Iraqi guards fired in the air when everyone started throwing shoes and sandals at him.”

CNNi and BBC World reported the incident: “Iyad Allawi was seen running from the shrine with a crowd of people hurling shoes at him”.

Allawi puppet rule supported American attack on Najaf shrine and Al Sadr militia in 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) August 8, 2004 — Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi paid a surprise visit to the holy Muslim city of Najaf, the scene of recent fierce fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents that has left an estimated 300 rebels dead. Allawi called on the militia fighters to “leave the holy sites quickly, lay down their weapons and return to the rule of order and law.”

Allawi believes that the people behind the violence in Najaf are common criminals and foreign forces — not part of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. U.S. officials have accused al-Sadr, a maverick, anti-U.S. Shiite cleric, of fomenting unrest. He is wanted in connection with the killing of a rival cleric last year.

A senior U.S. military official said there was no direct evidence that the fighters in Najaf were acting on al-Sadr’s orders although they are wearing the black uniforms representative of the Mehdi Army. That official said that there is evidence of competing factions within al-Sadr’s organization and that the fighters appear to be broken into squads of 10 to 12 men each.

BAGHDAD August 2004 – The final stages for an assault on
Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia in the holy city of Najaf are now in place.