A representative of Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged people in a sermon at Friday prayers to take up arms and defend their country from mostly Sunni insurgents. Sheikh Abdulmehdi al-Karbalai, who was delivering the sermon at prayers in the city of Kerbala, holy to Iraq's majority Shi'ites, said those killed fighting the militants would be martyrs. In response, worshippers chanted "Labbeik Ya Hussein", meaning they would act at the behest of Imam Hussein, who is buried in a shrine in Kerbala. Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) captured two more Iraqi towns overnight in a lightning sweep south towards the capital Baghdad in their campaign to recreate a Sunni Muslim caliphate carved out of fragmenting Iraq and Syria.
06-15-2014, 08:56 PM
Aide to Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric urges people to take up arms
العرض الشجري