Thousands attend funeral of Hezbollah leader

BEIRUT - Tens of thousands of mostly Muslim Shiites Tuesday attended the funeral of Lebanon’s leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.

Fadlallah, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor to the militant Hezbollah group and blacklisted as a terrorist by the United States, died in Beirut Sunday, two days after being admitted to hospital.

Representatives from Shiite communities in the Gulf, Iraq and Iran led the funeral procession - in sweltering heat and amid a wave of black flags - through the city’s southern suburbs, followed by a large crowd of mourners.

Women and men clad in black openly wept over the loss of a man they said was “the mentor of all Shiites around the world.”

“I am a Lebanese Shiite who lives in Dubai. I came on the first flight to Beirut to attend the funeral of our great mentor,” said Ali Zeineddine, an engineer.

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who attended the funeral, told DPA, “His death is a great loss, not only for the Shiite community but for all of us in Lebanon.”

The funeral procession passed through an area where Fadlallah was targeted in an allegedly CIA-sponsored, Saudi-funded assassination attempt on March 8, 1985 in Beirut which killed 80 people.

Condolences have poured in from across the Muslim world following the ayatollah’s death, even from senior Iranian figures, with whom Fadlallah had been at odds.

The Lebanese government declared Tuesday a day of national mourning and flags were flown at half mast.

The funeral procession was to end at the Hassanein mosque, where Fadlallah would be buried.

He was an outspoken critic of United States and Israeli for its actions in the region, often calling for resistance against Israel. But despite regular strong statements against Israel and the US during his weekly sermons, the Shiite cleric always denounced

terrorist acts.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Fadlallah had “stood courageously with the resistance against the enemy Israel, who always … warned against the plots planned for this region.”

In recent years Fadlallah, who was born in the Iraqi city of Najaf in 1935, distanced himself from Hezbollah, and promoted moderate social views, including on the role of women.

He rejected the Iranian Shiite doctrine of the rule of the clerical elite.

“No Shiite religious leader, not even Khomeini, has a monopoly on the truth,” he argued.