Iraqi ‘Mahdi claimant’ killed in Najaf battle

NAJAF: An Iraqi cult leader who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure in Islam, was killed in a battle on Sunday near Najaf with hundreds of his followers, Iraq’s national security minister said on Monday. Women and children who joined 600 to 700 of his “Soldiers of Heaven” on the outskirts of the Shia holy city may be among the casualties, Shirwan Al-Waeli told Reuters. All those people not killed were in detention, many of them wounded. Iraqi troops, backed by US forces, confronted the group after learning that it was planning an attack on the Shia clerical establishment in Najaf on Monday. “One of the signs of the coming of the Mahdi was to be the killing of the (religious hierarchy) in Najaf,” Waeli said. “This was a perverse claim. No sane person could believe it.” The final death toll, estimated by other Iraqi officials at 300 gunmen, was still being calculated, Waeli said, putting the initial figure at about 200. Searchers were still scouring the area where US tanks, helicopters and jets reinforced Iraqi troops during some 24 hours of fighting. reuters

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