Ayatollah Hakim calls for broad-based government in Iraq

Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim said yesterday Iraq needed a broad-based government to avoid a "social explosion", apparently backing away from past calls for an Iranian-style Islamic state.

Hakim, who returned from two decades of exile in Iran last week, also said he wanted his group's militia integrated into a new Iraqi national army following last month's US-led overthrow of President Saddam Hussein.

"I will be working to set up a government which will represent all the people of Iraq, restore security, reconstruct it and take it out of its isolation," Hakim told a news conference in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

"The majority of Iraqi people are Shi'ite. They should have a political role but not to the exclusion of other Iraqi people," he said.

"We want a political revolution and government including all the parties and people of Iraq or there could be some kind of social explosion."

Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), returned on Monday to Najaf, the seat of Iraqi Shi'ite clerical learning and place of his birth in 1939, to a tumultuous welcome.

His arrival added a new voice to the chorus of prominent Shi'ite clerics vying to be heard in Iraq. SCIRI is also poised for a political role as a member of a council including former opposition groups mapping the outlines of a future government.

"We want a democratic government which respects Islam. As SCIRI, we call for an Islamic state because we are Islamic," Hakim said, but he added that SCIRI had agreed with other opposition groups to form a pluralistic administration. Before returning home, Hakim had called for an Islamic state. SCIRI advocates an Iranian-style Islamic republic but Iraq's sectarian and ethnic mix - as well as the US military and political presence - makes that difficult or impossible.

Shi'ites, the majority, were oppressed by President Saddam's secular Baath party, whose rule was ended by the US and British invasion. About 60 percent of Iraqis are Shi'ites, with Sunni Arabs and Kurds forming most of the rest.

Hakim said SCIRI's armed militia, the 10,000-strong Badr forces, used to carry arms to confront Saddam's government.

"Now a part of them will be carrying out security work and rebuilding Iraq," he said. "This will be a civil rather than a military endeavour. They could be part of the Iraqi military forces."

Banners draped along the walls of the group's Najaf headquarters called for all Iraqi sects and religious schools to participate in post-war responsibilities.

Hamid al-Bayati, a member of SCIRI's central committee, said Badr forces were prevented from crossing into Iraq along with Hakim but thousands of them were already in the country.

"They were like an underground. Now they are over-ground," Bayati said. "Now because of the situation with the military forces they are not carrying weapons. We are waiting to see what their role will be."

He said integrating them into the army would be discussed, but added: "That will take some time."

Bayati said some former Badr forces were doctors and engineers who would now pursue civilian roles. Local police and tribal leaders have also been providing security for Hakim as he tours Iraq, he said.

Police in Najaf comprise civilian Iraqi volunteers, men who served as police under Saddam, and security forces who say they belong to a group which launched an "uprising" against the Iraqi army during the US-led war.