Hardline cleric issues fatwa amid Baghdad chaos

Baghdad's most powerful Shia cleric warned yesterday he would use a "hand of iron" to impose an extreme vision of Islam that could seriously challenge America's secular ambitions for Iraq.

Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartousi, a youthful hardliner, said he would vigorously enforce a new fatwa that bans alcohol, commands women to wear veils and orders cinemas to close.

The sheikh appears to have considerable popular support in the vast, impoverished Shia district in eastern Baghdad, formerly known as Saddam City, where his supporters stepped in swiftly to fill the power vacuum after the war.

Sheikh Fartousi, 31, admitted having up to 1,000 armed, former soldiers under his control, several of whom were guarding his office yesterday at the small al-Hekma mosque. While US troops continue to patrol most of Baghdad, there were none in evidence in the Shia district yesterday.

On Friday, during lunchtime prayers, the sheikh issued his fatwa, ordering his new laws to be in place by the end of this week. Several alcohol factories were attacked hours later.

Yesterday Sheikh Fartousi said Baghdad's sizeable Christian population should also follow his commands. "Our fatwa is for all the people," he said yesterday. "Alcohol is banned under every religion."

A committee from the mosque would be sent to the house of any who refused to obey the fatwa. "They will try to make the person understand that we believe in a religious society," he said.

"It should be a hand of iron to handle this matter. We will send these people to the Islamic courts."

His words will not be welcomed by all Iraqis. The country is one of the more secular nations in the Arab world. In Baghdad, alcohol is readily available and women often walk unveiled in the streets, study freely at universities and, in the past, were able to find work.

Saddam Hussein's crude attempts to Islamise the country in the last decade were built on a fragile foundation based on crushing Shia opposition and building himself monumental mosques.

Sheikh Fartousi appeared reluctant to condemn those Iraqis who have begun to lynch former Ba'ath party officials. "This is the reaction of the people because they are angry," he said. "It is not aggression, it is punishment because these Ba'ath people used to commit a lot of crimes."

He was also quick to criticise the US military for its handling of Iraq in the six weeks since the fall of the regime. "They haven't done anything. At the hospitals, it is our doctors running things and even the traffic we are handling ourselves," he said.

"The Americans should do what they promised and give authority back to the Iraqi people."

Although a relatively young cleric, Sheikh Fartousi is a leading figure in the al-Sadr movement, based around the followers of Imam Mohammed al-Sadr, a senior Shia cleric who was executed by Saddam in 1999. It is one of several Shia factions vying for power in the new Iraq. The Shia suburb of eastern Baghdad has now been renamed Sadr City, a mark of the influence of the movement.

Sheikh Fartousi said he was sent to Baghdad immediately after the war by the Hawza, the Shias' intellectual centre in the holy city of Najaf. He had worked for the clerics there, supervising the Islamic schools.

Once in Baghdad, he was imprisoned briefly by the Americans in the first days after the war but was later released. It appears last Friday's fatwa was not officially approved by the Hawza, but the sheikh said he had been authorised to make such decrees.

His mosque was crowded with Iraqis yesterday, all desperately hoping that he would be the answer to their many problems.

The sheikh said he had no political ambitions and did not envisage an Iranian-style theocracy for Iraq. But he added: "Without proper leadership, our people will be in a very dangerous situation."