Crowd pelts Allawi with rocks, shoes

The targeted politician called the violence an assassination attempt.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Ayad Allawi, one of Iraq's most prominent politicians, was pelted with rocks and shoes Sunday as he left a shrine south of Baghdad, escalating tensions between religious and secular Shiite Muslim factions 11 days before parliamentary elections that will set the country's course for the next four years.
In Baghdad, one of the five judges in the trial of Saddam Hussein stepped down because one of the co-defendants may have been involved in the execution of his brother, a court official said Sunday. Another official said police had uncovered a plot to fire rockets at the courtroom when the trial convenes today for a third session.
Allawi, the former interim prime minister now leading a major political coalition, said that he and his bodyguards were attacked with gunfire in an assassination attempt outside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, a claim disputed by local authorities.
Al-Sadr accused
Allawi and his deputies suggested that supporters of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is aligned with rival Shiite coalition the United Iraqi Alliance, had planned the attack. Al-Sadr's aides brushed aside Allawi's accusations.
The incident highlighted long-simmering antagonism between the secular, tough-talking Allawi and religious Shiites ahead of the Dec. 15 elections. Allawi's ideologically far-flung coalition of democratic liberals and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party is vying with the United Iraqi Alliance's clergy-led list of Islamic political parties for votes among the nation's Shiite majority.
Sunday's melee in Najaf erupted after Allawi prayed at the shrine, which houses the tomb of the prophet Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law and is widely considered the most sacred Islamic site in Iraq.
As a crowd of between 50 and 70 men hit Allawi with rocks as well as footwear, the latter an act considered a dreadful insult by Iraqis and Muslims, his bodyguards surrounded him, fired weapons into the air to disperse a gathering mob and hustled him to safety. He was escorted to a U.S. military base north of Najaf before he was taken to the capital, said an Allawi representative in Najaf.
Speaking in front of television cameras in Baghdad after the incident, an angry Allawi suggested those responsible for the melee were linked to the same elements that killed moderate Shiite cleric Abdul Majid Khoei in Najaf after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraqi authorities have alleged in the past that al-Sadr had a hand in the assassination, though he has never been arrested.
Allawi said the attackers, captured on videotape, also wore black, as do members of the Al Mahdi army, a militia loyal to al-Sadr.
"They were chanting similar chants they were saying during the Khoei assassination," said Allawi, who as prime minister approved a U.S. assault on rebellious Shiites in the city last year. "They were trying to assassinate all the delegation or at least to kill me."
Governor's response
The governor of Najaf, Asad abu Kalal, rejected the assassination claim Sunday night. He told reporters there were no weapons involved. "The people involved used stones and shoes," he insisted at a news conference.
He also laid part of the blame for the scuffle on Allawi because he visited the shrine accompanied by Western security contractors and without informing Najaf security forces.
Many Najaf residents resent Allawi for acquiescing to the U.S. military's 2004 request to attack the city and ferret out Al Mahdi militiamen. Weeks of gun battles between American troops and al-Sadr's ragtag army left the city in shambles, choked off the budding pilgrimage business and led to the destruction of large sections of the city's ancient cemetery.
In other violence Sunday, gunmen killed a Shiite parliamentary candidate and an Iraqi police commander in separate attacks. A bomb also detonated as a police patrol passed through central Baghdad, killing three civilians.
Saddam's trial
Amid the tension, the Iraqi High Tribunal convenes today for a third session of the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants, accused in the 1982 killing of more than 140 Shiites after an assassination attempt against the president in Dujail.
The defense has challenged the legitimacy of the court and is expected to ask for a recess to prepare its case.
A statement released Sunday by the office of Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said the 1920 Revolution Brigades, one of the country's best-known insurgent groups, planned to attack the building during the court session.
The statement said Iraqi intelligence uncovered the plot but gave no further details, including whether anyone had been arrested.
In Jordan, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark told reporters he and other international lawyers will meet Saddam after the hearing today to set out a defense strategy.
"It will be our first real meeting where we'll have the chance to discuss the trial," Clark told AP Television News before flying to Baghdad on Sunday. "He's being held in total isolation, not seeing any member of his family, any friend, anybody he knew before."
The slow pace of the trial -- which has included only two one-day sessions so far -- has drawn criticism from Shiite politicians. Some Shiite figures have urged supporters to vote for the main Shiite ticket on Dec. 15 to prevent Saddam from escaping justice.
During the Nov. 28 session, Saddam lashed out at his treatment by American "occupiers and invaders" and lectured the chief judge about leadership.