KUWAIT CITY, April 21: Shia leaders in Iraq will not take part in rituals marking the 40th day of the Karbala tragedy, which will reach a climax on Wednesday, for fear of “terrorist attacks” by Saddam Hussein’s loyalists, a Kuwaiti Shia figure said on Monday.

“We cannot hide our worries and fears of recurrent terrorist operations and clashes between these millions of crowds gathering at Karbala on Wednesday,” Mohammed Baqer Musawi al-Muhri said in a statement.

Mohammed Muhri said that due to an unstable security situation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the sheikhs Mohammed Said al-Hakim and Ishak Fayyad will not be participating in the march to the holy city and “will remain indoors away from people in protest at what’s happening”.

Sistani, based in the holy city of Najaf, is a leader of one of the main Shia currents in Iraq.

Saddam loyalists could “sneak” between the crowds, to the extent that some of them disguise their appearance to resemble religious Shias, warned Muhri, who heads an association of Shia scholars in Kuwait.

Such acts are to “shake the security situation and to wage civil strife, especially when the coalition is not intervening in such matters and has decided to watch from a distance,” Mohammed Muhri said.—AFP