Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

BAGHDAD, 3 September 2003 — A powerful Shiite member of the US-picked governing council raged against the occupation of the country during an eulogy to his slain brother yesterday, demanding American forces leave Iraq and blaming them for the lax security that allowed the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Al-Hakim.

Elsewhere, an Iraqi policeman was killed in a car bombing at the Baghdad police headquarters. The US military said that a soldier died in a non-hostile helicopter crash yesterday and that two others were killed in an ambush a day earlier.

Speaking to 400,000 mourners in Najaf, Abdel-Aziz Al-Hakim issued a stinging rebuke to the Americans in what could signal an open fissure in the historically cooperative relationship between the US-led civilian and military occupation and the majority Shiites. “The occupation force is primarily responsible for the pure blood that was spilled in holy Najaf, the blood of Al-Hakim and the faithful group that was present near the mosque,” Abdel-Aziz Al-Hakim said in his eulogy.

Clad in white robes and dark uniforms with Kalashnikov rifles at the ready, men stood guard every 5 meters along the roof of Najaf’s gold-domed Imam Ali Mosque as Al-Hakim voiced the pent-up frustrations of Iraqis throughout the country.

Three huge terrorist vehicle bombings punctuated the month of August at roughly 10-day intervals killing a total of at least 126 people. Al-Hakim has said he would not resign from the governing council but spoke with great anger about the American military’s inability to pacify the country.

“This force is primarily responsible for all this blood and the blood that is shed all over Iraq every day,” he said.

“Iraq must not remain occupied and the occupation must leave so that we can build Iraq as God wants us to do,” he said.

Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator for Iraq, who cut short his vacation because of the bombing, told a Baghdad news conference that coalition forces want to share responsibility for national security with Iraqis. He was not questioned about Al-Hakim’s remarks but spoke to his theme.

“We completely agree with the argument that we should find ways quickly to give Iraq and Iraqis more responsibility for security and indeed that is exactly what we are doing.”

Bremer, the former diplomat and counterterrorism expert, said there were already as many as 60,000 Iraqis involved in the security of the country — or being trained for such roles.

In Najaf, black mourning banners were draped across the Imam Ali Mosque, which on Friday was the site of Iraq’s bloodiest attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ayatollah Al-Hakim, the moderate cleric who had counseled cooperation with the United States after the war, was killed along with dozens of worshipers and innocent bystanders.

Unable to recover Al-Hakim’s body after the blast, the family buried a coffin containing his watch, pen and wedding ring. Al-Hakim’s 15 bodyguards, who died with him in the car bombing, were buried in neighboring plots.

As the funeral was about to begin, yet another car bomb exploded, this time in central Baghdad outside police headquarters, killing one officer and wounding 13 others and an unknown number of bystanders.