Top Shia cleric dies in Lebanon

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JNN 05.07.10 Lebanon’s leading Shia Muslim cleric, a key figure in the founding of Hezbollah, has died aged 74, hospital sources have said.

Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah died in a Beirut hospital on Sunday where he was admitted on Friday for internal bleeding.

Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was regarded as Hezbollah’s spiritual guide after it was founded in 1982.

A vocal critic of the United States, Ayatollah Fadlallah used to slam US warmongering policies in the Middle East, particularly its alliance with Israel.

Born in Najaf, Iraq, Fadlallah studied Islamic sciences in Najaf before moving to Lebanon in 1952.

In the following decades, he delivered many lectures, engaged in intense scholarship, wrote dozens of books, founded several Islamic religious schools, and established the Mabarrat Association.

Through that association he established a public library, a women’s cultural center, and a medical clinic.

The Grand Ayatollah was the target of several assassination attempts, including the CIA-sponsored and Saudi-funded March 8, 1985 Beirut car bombing that killed 80 people.

'Saudi Arabia training Iraq terrorists'

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JNN 05.07.10 Saudi Arabia has set up a military base near its border with Jordan for training militants to conduct terrorist activities in war-weary Iraq, informed sources say.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the terrorists were receiving training from ranking Saudi army officers.

Leak intelligence documents embarrassed Saudi officials in May when Iraq’s Buratha news agency revealed that Riyadh has been transferring large sums of money to al-Qaeda terrorists in neighboring Iraq.

The new agency later said up to 37 people had been arrested in connection with the leak, after Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz ordered a special committee to investigate the disclosure.

According to the sources, Riyadh is also supporting the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) — an anti-Iran listed terrorist group listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community.

They said Saudi Arabia is providing MKO terrorists with equipment free of charge.

Aside from conducting numerous acts of terror in Iran, the MKO is also known to have aided Iraq’s notorious dictator Saddam Hussein in suppressing the 1991 Shia uprisings in southern Iraq and the massacre of Iraqi Kurds