World News 03-09-2003 Anger and Grief At Cleric`s Funeral who: Shi`ite cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim what: Buried following three days of funeral marches where: Iraq when: Yesterday snippet: Ayatollah Mohammad Bakr al-Hakim was buried yesterday following three days of funeral marches. The senior Muslim cleric was killed along with about 120 others in Friday`s car bomb massacre in Najaf at the Shia shrine of Imam Ali. Hundreds of thousands of people attended and the late Ayatollah`s brother, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, delivered an angry speech calling for an end to the American occupation. Ominously, says The Independent, 15 people were injured yesterday in a smaller car bomb at the Iraqi police headquarters in Baghdad just yards from American soldiers. Reporters Justin Huggler and Seb Walker accuse the coalition forces of being hopelessly vulnerable to such random attacks. Meanwhile, in the USA, The Telegraph says the Bush administration "is preparing to ask the United Nations to transform the US-led force in Iraq to a multinational force and to play a leading role in forming an Iraqi government". In other Iraq news, The Scotsman says that 20 year-old Private Jessica Lynch, "whose capture and rescue won the hearts of Americans, has secured a $1 million book deal to tell her story". I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story will be published in November "with a first printing of about 500,000 copies". [... more]

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