Report: Bloody confrontations in Iraq

Iraqi sources told AFP in the Jordanian capital, Amman that the Iraqi armed forces were put on maximum alert due to bloody confrontations in certain Iraqi cities.

In Tehran, chairman of the Higher Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, said that confrontations continued on Monday in several Iraqi cities between the Iraqi security forces and the demonstrators.

Eyewitnesses told AFP in telephone calls from Amman that at least 100 people were killed in disturbances that erupted between security forces and the demonstrators following the assassination of one of the prominent clergy Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sader.

The Higher Council of the Islamic Revolution said that a large number of Iraqi government forces were killed in the confrontations that took place in the Iraqi cities, whereas some 18 citizens were shot to death by the guns of the Iraqi security forces.

In a statement released on Sunday, the council called upon Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdul Meguid to take urgent measures that would ensure the safety of religious researchers and the holy shrine of al-Najaf. The statement proposed the dispatching of a fact-finding committee and called on the Iraqi government to permit international supervision of an investigation to arrest those who committed this crime and to punish the killers and officials who gave their orders to commit such crimes.

The statements also called for imposing international monitoring on religious shrines which it said have been exposed to the danger of collective and mass destruction as well as to take appropriate measures to protect the Iraqi people against the mass killings.

For its part, the Islamic Labor Organization in Iraq said in a statement that intensive tension prevails Iraq after the government assassinated Muhammad al-Sader and his two sons. The organization added that clashes and confrontations continue in several Iraqi cities between the Iraqis and the government's forces.