Ali al Sistani

(Newser) - Iraq's top Shiite cleric issued a statement during Friday prayers today, calling on everyone—Shiite and Sunni alike—to fight back against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the New York Times reports. It is "the legal and national responsibility of whoever can hold a weapon, to...

(Newser) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under fire again, this time from Kurdish politicians who say he hasn’t followed through on promises he made after the Kurds propped him up last summer. A Kurdish/Sunni coalition against Maliki almost has enough votes to depose him, a development the US fears...

(Newser) - A bill allowing Saddam's party members back into power in Iraq has been rejected by that country's most powerful cleric. The law, aggressively  pushed by the U.S.,  would  allow former low-level Baathists--most of them Sunnis--to hold positions in government. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the powerful Shiite cleric, dismissed...