Manama, Bahrain - More than a thousand Bahraini Shiites
took to the streets of Sanabis and Daih villages on the outskirts
of Manama on Friday as protests against the bombing of Iraq's Golden
Mosque in Samarra continued in the small Gulf state.
The two rallies, which mark the third day of Shiite protest
in Bahrain, came just hours after an earlier rally in the Shiite
village of al-Duraz north of Manama, which attracted some 6,000
people on Thursday.
Protesters chanting 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' as
well denunciations of terrorism and Takfeereah groups - factions who
consider Muslims who differ with them as infidels - dominated the
angry protests.
Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qasem, the chairman of the Olama Islamic
Council (OIC), Bahrain's most influential Shiite group, had lead the
al-Duraz protest himself.
In an apparent attempt to calm Sunni concerns, Qasem said that no
retaliation would follow the bombings in Samarra, which has been
blamed by Iraqi and US officials on the terrorist group al-Qaeda.
'Whether we had swords or even nuclear weapons, we would not use
them against our Muslim brothers,' Qasem told the crowds during
Thursday night's rally.
An earlier rally on Thursday in Nouaim on the outskirts of
Manama, which was organized by the Islamic Scholars Hoza (school),
called on the Iraqi government to punish the groups that carried out
the bombings, and said the mosque destruction was an assault on all
Muslims.
While the US and Iraq blamed the bombings on al-Qaeda, Qasem
charged that the US and Western countries were conspiring with
Takfeereah groups to bring about sectarian divisions between
Muslims.
His remarks reflected an OIC statement issued Wednesday that
charged that 'forces hostile to the nation' intended to create
sectarian strife.
The OIC has warned that the attacks were designed to have very
serious repercussions in Islamic countries in addition to provoking
problems in Iraq itself by subverting the political process,
prolonging the US-led occupation and sparking sectarian fighting.
Shiites make up more than 60 per cent of the Gulf island's
population and have reacted sharply to regional developments
affecting Shiites particularly in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.
Bahrain's Shiite opposition group al-Wefaq Islamic Society, which
has a 17-member bloc in parliament, said that the attacks should
raise vigilance about plots that threatened to undermine the unity
and cohesion of Muslims at the religious and national level.
The bombings of the revered al-Askari Shiite mosque in Samarra
destroyed two minarets that were left standing after the 2006 bombing
of the shrine's golden dome that sparked a wave of sectarian
violence, killing thousands and bringing the country to the brink of
civil war.
Two of the 12 revered Shiite imams are buried in the Samarra
shrine - Imam Ali Al Hadi, who died in 868 and his son, the 11th
imam, Hasan Al Askari, who died in 874.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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