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12 Killed in Market Blast; Rafsanjani visits Sistani

Juan Cole 03/06/2009

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A car bomb at a livestock market in Babi province near the city of Hilla . The blast left 12 dead. Babil is majority Shiite but has a Sunni minority.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani met Thursday in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sistani is said to have expressed concern about violence by extremists from both the Sunni and the Shiite side. Sistani declined Rafsanjani’s invitation to visit Iran. it is rumored that Sistani does not approve of Khomeinism or the doctrine that the clerics Should rule. Rajfsanjani has met with Iraq’s president and prime minister on this trip.

End/ (Not Continued)

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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