Harith al-Dhari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
Sheik Harith Sulayman al-Dhari was born in 1941 in Baghdad. He is a Sunni Arab cleric, and chairman of the Association of Muslim Scholars. His grandfather, also a Sunni, played a small part in the 1920 revolution against British imperial rule although it was southern Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims who led almost all the fighting and succeeded to drive out the British out of Iraq.
[edit] Education
Harith al-Dhari was educated at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He later worked in the Islamic Law Department of Baghdad University.[1]
[edit] Role in Iraqi politics
He has been an outspoken critic of the foreign military presence in Iraq and has said he approves of the armed resistance in the absence of a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. This stance has won him support among hard-line Sunni Arabs and respect among the rebels.
But most Iraqis have made Dhari a hate figure for his refusal to criticise al Qaeda's activities in Iraq costing dozens of Iraqi lives a day through bombings in crowded Shi'ite places.
On November 16, 2006, the Interior Minister of Iraq Jawad al-Bolani, an Iraqi Shi'a, announced that an arrest warrant had been issued from the state's judicial system and Dhari, who now lives between Cairo and Amman, was wanted on charges of inciting violence. "The government's policy is that anyone who tries to spread division and strife among the Iraq people will be chased by our security agencies,".[2][3][4] In his speech on July 2, 2006,Osama Bin Laden praised Mr Al-Dhari.(http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP128606
He got killed recently in an infighting between terrorist groups.
