| A senior Shiite cleric called Friday for peaceful resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and warned his followers were running out of patience. Imam Sadreddine al-Qobanji spoke to more than 15,000 people who jammed the Imam Ali mosque, Iraq's holiest Shiite Muslim shrine. He said last week's bombing outside the mosque - which killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and dozens of other people - was aimed at sowing discord in Iraq. "Once we find that this road (peaceful resistance) has come to a dead end, we will adopt other means," said al-Qobanji, who had been al-Hakim's deputy. "Those who killed al-Hakim were hoping we would collapse. They wanted to sow discord among us. They wanted to force a change in our path. We tell them we will not collapse, there will be no discord and there will be no change in the path," al-Qobanji said. |