Has anyone else noticed that we don't seem to quite know the identity of the 250 plus gunmen killed at Najaf yesterday? "Iraqi security officials offered conflicting accounts of the identity and motives of the heavily armed fighters outside Najaf, variously describing them as foreign fighters, Sunni Muslim nationalists, loyalists of executed former dictator Saddam Hussein or followers of a messianic Shiite death cult. Some witnesses reported that the attackers wore colorful Afghan tribal robes." That's a pretty broad range of possible affiliations for people to be in a several hour major battle with to not know roughly who they are.

Update: The NYT reports that the 500 gunmen involved in the huge clash near Najaf yesterday were members of the messianic Shiite cult, "Soldiers from Heaven." They had apparently planned to "storm the city during a religious festival and kill the nation’s top Shiite clerics." The group's leader is named Ali bin Ali bin Abi Talab, and Iraqi officials describe the cult as "Shiite in its 'exterior,' but not in its 'core.'”

Or are they?:

While Iraqi officials stressed today the group’s mixed membership and fringe beliefs, on Sunday two senior Shiite clerics said the gunmen were part of a Shiite splinter group that Saddam Hussein helped build in the 1990’s to compete with followers of the venerated Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

They said the group, calling itself the Mahdawiya, was loyal to Ahmad bin al-Hassan al-Basri, an Iraqi cleric who had a falling out with Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr — father-in-law of the Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr — in Hawza, a revered Shiite seminary in Najaf.

Posted by Laura at January 29, 2007 11:40 AM