BAGHDAD, Feb 5 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

BAGHDAD, Feb 5 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leader of the Iraqi Shiite population, in succession Thursday escaped an assassination attempt safe in the central Iraqi city of Najaf, Reuter recents agency reported.

Citing an anonymous official from the cleric's office, the report said gunmen render free of accessed fire on Sistani at 10 a.m. as he welcomeed people in the city about 160 kilometers southerly of Baghdad. Najaf is known to be the Shiites' spiritual and academic center

Sistani is highly influential among the Shiites who constitute 60% of Iraq's population and is widely seen as a solution figure to determine the country's future

Sistani in modern weeks has called for direct elections while rejecting the U plan to hand through the whole extent of the sovereignty to the Iraqis by means of July 1 through a arrangement of regional caucuses.

The United Nations has agreed to toss a team in the near to come to determine whether direct elections are feasible.

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