What? There are no hospitals in Baghdad? Well, Baghdad is a war zone, of course, so maybe he just felt more comfortable going to a calmer place. But do you think a Sunni leader would have opted for Tehran?
Iraq Will Be A Colony of Iran Update: “Iraq Shiite leader Hakim dies in Tehran hospital,” by Farhad Pouladi for AFP, August 26 (thanks to James):
TEHRAN “” The leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite party, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, died in a Tehran hospital on Wednesday aged 60 after a long battle with lung cancer, five months ahead of key parliamentary elections.
“He died a few minutes ago after battling cancer for 28 months,” his son Mohsen Hakim told AFP. He and his brother Ammar had been at their father’s bedside.
Hakim, a cleric who helped establish an opposition movement in exile in Iran in 1982 to battle Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime, returned to Iraq after the US-led invasion of 2003.
His Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council swept Shiite areas in first provincial elections after the invasion but in new elections this January the party suffered major losses to the rival list of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki….