Crowd pelts Allawi at shrine, hurling shoes, stones & tomatoes

[kpete]

Kpete: I saw this on an earlier post and it was just reported again on CNN. The following is from alJazeera:

Crowd pelts Allawi at shrine
Sunday 04 December 2005, 17:03 Makka Time, 14:03 GMT

Allawi promises to crack down on violence and religious militias

A crowd hurling shoes, stones and tomatoes has prompted Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, to cut short a visit to Iraq's holiest Shia shrine during a campaign trip to the city of Najaf.

A spokeswoman for Allawi, a secular Shia, said she had no information on the incident but confirmed that Allawi, who is challenging the ruling Shia Islamist Alliance bloc at next week's parliamentary election, had been in Najaf on Sunday.

A police captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a large crowd of worshippers at the Imam Ali mosque hurled sandals and shoes at Allawi - a grave insult in the Iraqi culture.

A second police officer said some of Allawi's bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd that threw stones, sticks, tomatoes and other projectiles at him. Police intervened to break up the disturbance, he said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BB98E8C4-E4CA-4E43-846F-6769C045A2B9.htm

[Greyhound]

1. What could be more republican than installing a convicted criminal

who is universally hated by the people as the head of your puppet government? Sounds just like home.

[xchrom]

2. allawi = wolfowitz in iraq.

the iraqi people have had plenty of experience with arabs who hold the interests of the west closer than they hold the interests of the iraqi people.

[BlueManDude]

3. When they look at him they see Bush. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

4. Beating the Devil

That's very symbolic to a Muslim. It's traditional during the Hajj, or pilgrammage to throw stones and shoes at the three pillars in Mina.

The three pillars represent Satan.

[enigma000]

5. tough crowd in Najaf

Looks like Allawi won't be picking up many seats in the election there.

Maybe he will do better elsewhere.

[the_real_38]

6. That's what would happen to Bush if they didn't ..

.... spend so much manpower filtering out protestors. I think it's great this fool had to face the people he has misled.

[butterfly77]

7. World can't wait...