BAGHDAD, Sept 3: Iraq’s most influential Shia leader warned the prime minister to quell violence or risk “other powers” filling the gap, while police found the tortured and blindfolded bodies of 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims and their Iraqi driver.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, 160 kilometers south of Baghdad, the cleric’s office said.

“If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty and this a very dangerous matter,” al-Sistani’s office quoted him as saying.

The meeting came two days after a barrage of coordinated attacks across mainly Shia eastern Baghdad killed 64 people and wounded 286. —AP