IRAK

Independent: Murdered in a mosque: the cleric who went home to act as a peacemaker

The 12 years of exile in Kilburn, in north-west London could not have prepared him for this. Abdul Majid al-Khoei had lived quietly there, running a charitable religious foundation.

He took part in polite interfaith dialogues. He was one of a number of Muslim leaders who met Tony Blair to offer advice on Islamic sensitivities to foster good race relations, at home and abroad.

Nothing in that could have hinted of what would happen yesterday – that he would be hacked to death by a crowd at one of Islam's holiest shrines.

It was, by terrible irony, the shrine holding the silver-covered tomb of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, who is honoured by Muslims as the first Islamic martyr. And now martyrdom came to Mr Khoei, who had returned to Iraq from exile in Britain only two weeks ago to act as a peace broker for Allied forces and help rebuild his country.

Mr Khoei, whose father was the pre-eminent spiritual leader of the Shia Muslim community in Iraq, was slain inside the Ali Mosque in Najaf, the third most sacred site for the world's 120 million Shias.

Witnesses said Mr Khoei, who had four children, was dragged outside the building and set upon by attackers armed with knives and swords. He tried to defend himself by firing his gun.

As bullets and insults flew, it took just moments for simmering tensions within Najaf's Shia community to explode into a killing.

The reasons for the killing remained unclear last night. Some said that Mr Khoei was the target of a political assassination by Saddam Hussein loyalists. Others said he had been caught up in a revenge attack on a cleric, reviled for his connections to the Iraqi regime, who was also killed.

The murders took place shortly after 10am as Iraq's leading Shia mullahs gathered for a meeting to decide control of the shrine, which had been occupied by Iraqi gunmen during fighting for Najaf.

Mr Khoei had arrived for the gathering with Haider al-Kadar, the imam who had been in charge of the mosque and was widely disliked as a member of President Saddam's Ministry of Religion. Their joint arrival was a gesture of reconciliation, according to Mr Khoei's supporters.

Ali Assayid Haider, a mullah who had travelled from the southern city of Basra for the meeting, said: "People attacked and killed both of them inside the mosque."

There were fears that the incident could trigger in-fighting among Iraq's Shias, who make up 60 per cent of the population.