After the conclusion of a day-long battle near the Shia holy city of Najaf,  those who are against the religion of Islam can celebrate the killing of the 12th Imam (the Mahdi) who rose and ended up in Iraq instead of Iran despite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated letters down a well in Qom, Iran.

The leader of the cult, Abu Gumer al-Yamani, claimed he was the Mahdi, meaning the 1,400 year old living man who is set about to bring peace to earth by slaying those who are against Allah and those who do not believe or do not believe the way Allah wishes they believe.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.  Reports, such as this one by the Washington Post, indicate the attack by joint Iraqi-U.S. forces against this compound containing “hundreds” of insurgents ended up foiling an attack that had planned on killing Shia pilgrims and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.  Sistani’s death would have been a major blow.

Since the attack would have been on a revered Shia political and religious leader, and it would have killed a number of Shia and aimed at destroying the Shia holy city of Najaf, we would assume the attack was done by Sunnis.  If the reports indicating the leader of the group believed he was the Mahdi, the compound was full of Shia and it was a Shia cult planning to attack the Shia religion.

An estimated 200-300 insurgents were killed in the Iraqi military-led attack on the compound.  I’d like to know, however, how a group that large could just nestle up in a city without prior action taken against it before it could reach such a large size.  Could this be part of the Iraqi government’s new decision to do something about the Shia death squads and insurgent groups too?