A group of followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, 22-year-old son of Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, a senior Shiite authority assassinated in 1999, surrounded the home of Imam Sistani Saturday to demand him leave Najaf within 48 hours, said Mohammad Baqer Musawi al-Muhri, who heads the Congregation of Muslim Shiah Olama in Kuwait.

"The group is threatening Imam (Ali) Sistani ... demanding he leave Iraq within 48 hours," said al-Muhri.

He also said that such ultimatum was also given to Sheikh Is'hakFayyad, an Afghan-born Shiite religious scholar also based in Najaf.

Al-Muhri added that he also feared for the life of Ayatollah Mohamed Saeed al-Hakim, nephew of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim who heads the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite opposition group against the ousted regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

He said he learned of the threats against the three clerics after contacting Shiite sources in Najaf by satellite phone on Saturday.

Al-Muhri urged the US and Britain troops to protect senior Shiite clerics in Najaf from "mobs," some of whom are members of former ruling Baath Party who "want to stir up trouble to prove that the US-led coalition cannot maintain security."

Al-Muhri had earlier accused the same group of assassinating pro-Western cleric Sayyed Abdul Majid al-Khoei, who was hacked to death by a mob in a mosque on Thursday, one week after his return from exile in London. Fayyad was a close associate of Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, he said.

The tension among Shiite factions highlights an intensifying power struggle within the leadership of Iraq's Shiites, which make up some 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million population, after the collapse of the Saddam regime.

(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2003)