Cult plotted attack on Shiite clerics, Iraqis say

Story Highlights

• Insurgents in Najaf battle are part of messianic cult, Iraqi officials say
• Plot to attack Najaf apparently involved killing Shiite clerics
• U.S., Iraqi forces kill at least 200 gunmen, 100 captured, sources say
• U.S. helicopter goes down near Najaf, the military says; two Americans killed

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NAJAF, Iraq (CNN) -- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other top Shiite religious figures were the apparent targets of a plot by a Muslim messianic cult intent on seizing the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraqi officials said.

The plot was thwarted by an intense battle that began early Sunday when Iraqi police and troops were dispatched to go after the insurgents, officials said.

U.S. forces took the lead Monday as the fighting wound down, an Iraqi police official said.

The cult believed its plan to seize the Shiite holy city and assassinate top Shiite clerics would bring about the coming of the Mehdi, a Muslim messiah, the official said. (Watch what the insurgents planned in their attack )

Col. Ali Jraiwi said the insurgents detained after Sunday's fighting told Najaf police they are members of a group called "Soldiers of Heaven" and are a mix of Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Iraqi officials said the insurgents planned to seize control of Najaf and the surrounding province and kill top Shiite religious figures, including al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite leader. (Map)

Jraiwi said they also planned to attack the Imam Ali Shrine at the heart of the city and Shiite pilgrims observing the annual Ashura holy period.

An Iraqi military commander in charge of the Najaf area told The Associated Press that the leader of the group, whom he identified as Ahmed Hassan al-Yamani, was among those killed.

"This is an example of a promise kept," U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy commanding general of the Multi-National Division-Baghdad and the 1st Cavalry Division, said in a written statement. "Everything worked just as it should have."

The Americans confirmed that more than 100 insurgents were captured in the daylong battle.

Sunday's fighting left at least 200 fighters dead, 120 detained and 60 wounded, Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said.

By Monday, the fighting was "90 percent over," with at least 1,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the mop-up operation, Jraiwi said.

Jraiwi said six Iraqi security force members were killed in Sunday's fighting, with another 30 Iraqis wounded.

In addition, two U.S. soldiers died when their helicopter went down near Najaf, apparently shot down by insurgents, Iraqi officials and a U.S. military official in Washington said.

An initial investigation indicates the AH-64 Apache was shot down by heavy machine-gun fire, a senior U.S. military official said.

The cause remains officially under investigation.

Al-Sistani 'like the Shia pope'

If the insurgents had carried out their plan to assassinate al-Sistani, the effect on Iraq and the rest of the region would have been devastating, according to Vali Nasr, who studies Shiite influence in the Middle East.

His possible death "would really plunge Iraq and the possibly the rest of the region into a bloodbath," said Nasr, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and author of "The Shia Revival," a recent book on the rise of the sect.

"Ayatollah Sistani is the most revered and the most followed Shia spiritual leader," Nasr said.

"He is like the Shia pope. Shias follow him across the Middle East in religious affairs, and his death at the hands of the insurgents would be of enormous symbolic value."

Al-Sistani pushed for early elections after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and urged his followers in the majority-Shiite country to turn out and vote. During the years of attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents, he has urged his followers to avoid bloodshed in reprisals.

Jraiwi said the Iraqis were tipped off early Sunday that insurgents were gathering near Zarqa, a town about six miles (10 kilometers) north of Najaf. He said they moved southward among convoys of Shiite pilgrims headed for Najaf for Ashura, when Shiites mark the seventh-century martyrdom of the Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed's grandson. (Gallery)

The final stop on the pilgrimage culminates Tuesday in the nearby city of Karbala.

The annual holy period has been marred by sectarian killings since it resumed after Hussein's ouster. Bombings targeted pilgrims in Baghdad and Karbala in 2004, killing 180 people.

Baquba mayor, 1,500 police officers fired

Iraq's government fired the mayor of strife-torn Baquba for his suspected collaboration with Sunni Arab insurgents. It also fired 1,500 police officers in surrounding Diyala province for failing to take on the insurgents, government officials said Sunday.

Mayor Khalid al-Senjeri, a Sunni, was kidnapped January 22 by insurgents who blew up his office and stole several police vehicles. He was released unharmed a few days later.

Diyala Gov. Raad Rashid al-Tamimi, a Shiite, announced al-Senjeri's dismissal on Sunday and ordered an immediate investigation into the kidnapping.

Police officials and an Interior Ministry official said 1,500 police officers who fled rather than resist a November insurgent attack on the city have been fired as well. The officials said large numbers of Iraqi police in Diyala, northeast of the capital, were collaborating with insurgents.

Bombs, mortar fire kill 21 in Baghdad

Bombings and mortar attacks across Baghdad on Monday killed at least 21 people and wounded 67 others, Iraqi officials said.

A suicide car bomber targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint between the Hurriya and Kadhimiya neighborhoods in northwestern Baghdad killed five people -- including an Iraqi soldier -- and wounded 25 others, a Baghdad emergency police official said.

An Iraqi official said he expects 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims from Baghdad to crowd Kadhimiya on Monday night and Tuesday for the Ashura holy day. The Musa al-Kadhim shrine in Kadhimiya is an alternative site for Shiite pilgrims who cannot make the trek to Karbala.

Mortar fire in residential neighborhoods and roadside bombs also killed 16 people in various parts of Baghdad, a police official said.

Police found 22 unidentified bodies dumped across Baghdad on Monday, an Interior Ministry official said.

Also, in northern Iraq, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khurmato, a Kurdish town about 45 miles (70 kilometers) south of Kirkuk, according to an official with the Salaheddin Joint Coordination Center.

The attack on the Fatima al-Zahra mosque killed three people and wounded four, the official said.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, Barbara Starr and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.