Courtesy of The New York Times
A senior aide to Moktada al-Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric, was killed Friday in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, as he returned home from prayers, in what officials in Mr. Sadr’s organization said was an assassination carried out by unknown gunmen.
The aide, Riyadh al-Nuri, who was a senior official in the Sadr office in Najaf, was also related to Mr. Sadr by marriage. His sister is married to Mr. Sadr’s brother.
The killing is certain to increase tensions between Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and government security forces, which fought an intense battle in Basra last month and have been engaged in heavy fighting in Mr. Sadr’s eastern Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City.
Iraqi security forces immediately imposed a curfew in Najaf and put extra troops on the streets, fearing a backlash from the Mahdi Army militia.
In a statement, Mr. Sadr said the United States and the American-backed Iraqi government were behind the killing. “This is the hand of the occupier and his successor reaching out traitorously and aggressively against our precious martyr," he said in the statement, according to Reuters. “It is my vow that I will not forget this precious blood."
However, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr said the cleric had appealed for calm and ordered his followers "not to be dragged into others’ plots," The Associated Press reported.
In Najaf, the police set up road blocks and drove through the city with loudspeakers ordering shops to be closed and people to leave the streets, Reuters reported.
Within an hour of the killing, a rocket struck the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad, one of the capital’s landmarks and just across the river from the Green Zone. No one was injured, according to hotel staff, although news agencies reported that three civilians were killed outside the hotel during the attack, citing the local police as sources.
The missile punched through a foot of concrete and destroyed the food and beverage manager’s first-floor room on the east side of the hotel.
Hassan al-Rubaie, a Sadrist member of Parliament, condemned the killing in Najaf. “We condemn this attack against Sayyed Nuri and we call on the Iraqi government to set up an investigative committee to stop the security situation deteriorating," Mr. Rubaie said.
Mr. Nuri’s brother, Ahmad Jassem al-Nuri, said: “All I know is that they killed him after Friday prayers. I am on my way to Najaf now.”
The remains of the rocket used in the attack on the Palestine Hotel were inspected at the scene by American troops. They said it was likely to be a Katyusha rocket. The angle at which the rocket struck the hotel suggested it may have been fired from east or northeast Baghdad, which are predominantly Shiite areas.
American and Iraqi government forces have been fighting on the southern edge of Sadr City in recent days in an effort, among other things, to curb rocket and mortar attacks on the Green Zone.
The A.P. said Mr. Nuri was shot as he drove home after Friday prayers in a nearby city.
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