More than 100,000 mourners packed into the holy city of Najaf today for the funeral of a top Shi'ite cleric slain in the deadliest attack in postwar Iraq.
Mourners in Najaf, about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, slapped their chests and heads in traditional Shi'ite rituals at the funeral of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim.
The cortege's arrival follows a three-day funeral procession around southern Iraq, as the dead cleric's coffin was taken to a number of holy shrines before burial, as Shia tradition demands.
Hakim was a key leader of Iraq's Shi'ite majority who had advocated cautious cooperation with the occupiers.
He died with more than 80 of his followers outside the Imam Ali shrine in the most lethal of a string of bombings, increasingly frequent in recent weeks after months of lower-level guerrilla violence.
Many Shi'ites believe supporters of Saddam, a Sunni Muslim who repressed them, carried out the attack. But they also blame US forces for postwar insecurity.
While Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq is not friendly toward Washington, it has so far worked with the occupiers in the hope they will install democracy - giving Shi'ites much more power than they had under Saddam.
Iraq's US-backed Governing Council, which includes Hakim's brother, named a cabinet of 25 ministers yesterday and they are due to be sworn tomorrow.
The ministers will formulate policy with the Governing Council and the occupying authorities. Ultimate power remains with the US administration until a general election, which could be held sometime next year.