6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2006
WORLD
U.S. action displeases Shiite leader
BY QASSIM ABDL-ZAHRA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alaa al-Mariani/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A letter from President Bush to Iraq's supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week, but sits unread and untranslated in the top religious figure's office, a key al-Sistani aide told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Kareem, a Iraqi boy who fled from Abu Ghraib to Najaf, plays in a migration camp in the desert north of Najaf, Iraq. Thursday. Some 33,000 Iraqis, mainly Shiites, were displaced in Iraq following the Feb. 22 attack on an important Shiite shrine north of Baghdad, an official with the International Organization for Migration said Thursday.
The aide — who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani's refusal to make any public statements himself — said the Ayatollah had laid the letter aside and did not ask for a translation because
of increasing "unhappiness" over what senior Shilite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government.
The aide said the person who delivered the Bush letter — he would not identify the messenger by name or nationality — said it carried Bush's thanks to al-Sistani for calling for calm among his followers in preventing the outbreak of civil war after a Shiite shrine was bombed late last month.
The messenger also was said to have explained that the letter reinforced the American position that Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari should not be given a second term. Al-Sistani has not publicly taken sides in the dispute, but rather has called for Shite unity.
The United States was known to object to al-Jaafari's second term, but has never said so outright and in public.
But on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad carried a similar letter from Bush to a meeting with Abdul-Aiz al-Shakim, leader of the largest Shiite political organization, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
displeasure with U.S. involvement was so deep that dignitaries in the holy city of Najaf refused to meet Khalilizad on Wednesday during ceremonies commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The Afghan-born Khalilizad is a Sunni Muslim.
The al-Sistani aide said Shiite
Elizabeth Colton, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, said Khalilzad had not sought any meetings and simply flew over Najaf and the nearby holy city of Karbala to witness the big processesions of Shiite faithful marking the day.
"The ambassador did a飞 over to see people on the streets of Karabala and Najaf. The ambassador did not ask to see anyone and did not go into either city." Colton told The Associated Press.
The United States is believed to oppose al-Jaafari because of his close ties and strong backing from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has thousands-strong heavily armed militia that was responsible for much of the violence that hit the country after the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
At a news conference Thursday, al-Jafairi said he had met with Khalilizad a day earlier and that the U.S. ambassador denied remarks attributed to him about the prime minister's candidacy for a new term.
"I don't care much about these matters. I look at the Iraqi people and the democratic mechanisms," al-Jaafari said.
WORLD
Hasan Jamali/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An unidentified man wades into the sea while holding a searchlight late Thursday after a passenger ferry sank off the coast of Manama, Bahrain. Bahraini officials said the ferry was carrying up to 150 people when it sank Thursday night off the coast of Bahrain. Dozens of bodies were recovered and dozens of survivors have been rescued.
52 rescued from sinking ferry
U. S. helicopters aid in recovery
BY HASAN JAMALI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANAMA, Bahrain — A ferry carrying up to 150 people sank Thursday night in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Bahrain. Interior Minister Sheik Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said at least 52 people had been rescued.
At least 44 bodies had been recovered, the country's interior minister said. American divers and a U.S. helicopter aided the rescue effort.
The official Bahrain News Agency said the ferry was on an
There was no indication of what caused the ferry to sink in what appeared to be ideal weather conditions.
evening cruise that was to last several hours. It overturned less than a mile off the coast, it said.
"There are 52 survivors and there are also 44 dead that were retrieved," Al Khalifa said on Bahrain television. "So far, the operations continue. God willing, there will be more survivors rescued."
There was no indication of what caused the ferry to sink in what appeared to be ideal weather conditions.
The government dismissed terrorism as a cause, and the news agency quoted Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Mohammed Ben Dayna as calling the sinking an accident.
"It's too early to say what caused the accident," he said.
The passengers on board were thought to be a mix of Bahrainis, other Gulf Arab nationals and Westerners.
Ben Dayna said those rescued included foreign tourists and expatriate workers living in Bahrain.
The interior minister said most of the ferry's passengers were employees of a Bahrain-based company and that they came from several nationalities.
Cmdr. Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based Navy 5th fleet, told The Associated Press that the U.S. military was aiding the rescue effort.
"We're sending divers, small boats and a helicopter right now." Breslau said.
A pair of helicopters could be seen from the shore flying low over the site of the incident.
Rescue teams on small boats could also be seen using flash lights to help them search for survivors in the night.