Gunmen Kill Sunni Iman, Son in Iraq After Mosques Ordered Closed
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Gunmen killed a Sunni imam and his son in the mostly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq as they were leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, police said.
The attack occurred one day after Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, had tried to curb sectarian violence in the region by ordering all Shiite mosques to close for three days in a town near Basra where a local Sunni Arab leader had been assassinated.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In Friday's attack, three gunmen killed Sheik Khalil Ibrahim, a Sunni imam of the al-Khudairi mosque in the Ashar area of central Basra, and his son as they were leaving the building after Friday prayers, said police Capt. Mushtaq Kadhim.
Al-Sistani had issued the edict for mosques in Zubayr to be closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday after gunmen killed Sunni imam Sheik Khaled Ali Obeid al-Saadoun and two of his associates Wednesday as they left a mosque there after evening prayers. Al-Saadoun also had served as the local leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab political group.
Zubayr is about 13 miles southwest of Basra, the provincial capital where most of the 8,000 soldiers that Britain has in Iraq are based.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Southern Iraq has long been much less violent than Baghdad and western Iraq where Sunni Arab-led insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq launch frequent attacks against Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi forces. But al-Sistani hasn't always been able to control growing anti-coalition fervor among Shiite radicals.
Last Saturday, a British military helicopter crashed in Basra, killing the five-member British crew. Apparently downed by a missile or rocket, it hit a two-story house. A crowd of Iraqis cheered and threw stones at British forces who raced to the scene to seal off the area.
Last month, the body of a Sunni lecturer in the Basra Technical Institution, Salah Aziz, was found by police in Basra, a day after he was seized by gunmen.