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Fri - May 21 -

POCKET-POCKET: A Terrible Litany

> Spanish National Radio RNE reported today that its correspondent in Iraq, Fran Sevilla, had been detained at a Shiite mosque near Najaf where he tried to attend al-Sadr's Friday sermon. It appeared that he was being held hostage. He telephoned his employer about this problem before the Sadr militia divested him of his telephone, according to AFP/Yahoo!News. ~ AP subsequently reported that Sevilla was released after four hours.

> Although combat was very heavy in the area, al-Sadr still managed to deliver his weekly sermon at the Kufa mosque near Najaf, telling his supporters to continue their fighting even if he is arrested or killed.

> Then Mohammed Tabtabai who usually stands right behind Sadr during Sadr's Friday sermon was arrested with his bodyguard companion when they left Kufa after Friday prayers and their driver was killed. Tabtabai is believed to be a close aide to the loose canon al-Sadr. He is being held in custody by US troops, according to what an official in Sadr's office told ::AFP::

> Sevilla was not the only newsie in trouble today. Hamid Rashid Wali of Aljazeera TV was killed in Karbala according to Dr Ali Aradawi at the city hospital.

"At around 12:30 am, we had just finished transmitting on the roof of the hotel when shots were fired at us and Rashid Hamid Wali was shot in the head," said the Al-Jazeera producer in Baghdad, Saad Ibrahim.

Violence also erupted in the nearby city of Najaf at 11:30am. Bullets whizzed around alleyways, and shops were shuttered, as militiamen armed with assault rifles and RPG launchers spread out in force on the deserted streets.

:: Middle East Online ::

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