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Article: Ayatollah Al Hakim.(Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim)(Interview)
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- April 28, 2003
- Author:
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Ayatollah Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim may hold the key to a stable post- Saddam government in Iraq. Head of the dominant Shiite exile group, the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, he is a possible future leader of Iraq's Shiite majority. As such he could well determine whether the country becomes democratic and secular--or drifts toward Islamic fundamentalism.
SCIRI was founded in the early 1980s to export Iran's fundamentalist revolution to Baghdad. The group, which has a large militia called the Badr Brigade, says that is no longer its goal--Iraq has been too secular for too long. Still, it must decide whether to work with the ...