IRAQI SHIITE CLERIC URGED POLITICIANS TO END ALL DISPUTES

An undated file picture shows top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. (Photo: AP)

Fallujah, 6 Rajab 1436/25 April 2015 (MINA) – During the weekly Friday prayer, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged the country’s politicians to end all disputes in order to confront the political, economic and security challenges facing the country.

“It is important that the brothers (the politicians) should come out with final and drastic solutions for the problems,” said al-Sistani’s representative during a sermon Friday in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, Al Arabiya quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Many Iraqis blame the rivalries among the country’s political leadership for the humiliating defeat suffered by government forces in the past year at the hands of the ISIS militants that control large sections of the north and west of the country.

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In Friday’s violence, police officials said a bomb exploded near an outdoor market in the Sunni town of Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad, killing four people and wounding eight.

A bomb near a courthouse killed three people and wounded nine in the town of Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad.

Medical officials confirmed the death toll. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. (T/P001/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)