I hope this story is not true:

(London) As Iraq sinks closer and closer to all-out civil war the country's most influential Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is reportedly calling for death to gays and Sunni Moslems.

Sunni Arabs, who have run Iraq since its creation nearly 90 years ago, total barely a fifth of the population are involved in bitter armed battled with Shiites.

Sistani, a native Iraqi who was trained in Iran, has emerged as one of the country's leading figures in the push by Shiites for an Islamic republic.

His heavily armed Badr Corps was trained by the Iranian military in the 1980s.

The armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, it was brought into the government by U.S. officials in 2003.

But the Corps, believed to have about 20,000 men, is now suspected of running death squads in the Iraqi police. Estimated to have perhaps.

On his Web site, used to communicate with Shiite masses throughout the country, Sistani this week issued a fatwa against Sunnis and gays.

He urges followers to kill homosexuals in the "worst, most severe way".

"Sistani's murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men,” says exiled gay Iraqi, Ali Hili, of the London-based gay human rights group OutRage.

Hili also heads up the new Iraqi LGBT – UK Abu Nawas group, which consists of exiled gay Iraqis and has close links with clandestine gay activists inside Iraq.

"We hold Sistani personally responsible for the murder of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Iraqis. He gives the killers theological sanction and encouragement,” Hili in a statement on Wednesday.

Hili accused the West of allowing Sistani and the Badr Corps to go on a witch-hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis.

"Despite Badr’s murderous record, the UK allows its political arm, SCIRI, to have offices and fundraise in the UK. Badr is the terrorist wing of SCIRI. Badr should be proscribed as a terrorist organization," said Hili.

He also alleged that Badr militants are entrapping gay men via internet chat rooms.

"They arrange a date, and then beat and kill the victim," Hili said.

I hope it's not true, as I wouldn't want to think that my tax dollars (or American lives) are helping to support someone like that. For now, it's mostly being reported on gay sites. I'd want to see it confirmed in some of the larger mainstream news sites before jumping to some very unsettling conclusions. (Not just about Iraq, but about moderate Islam. Sigh. This is the sort of thing I expect from Hamas. But then, we're not supposed to be supporting Hamas.)

UPDATE: A recent Wikipedia entry gives reason to suspect that the report about Sistani may be inaccurate:

On March 16th, 2006, Sistani was blamed for issuing an edict that declared that homosexuality and lesbianism are "forbidden" and that gay people should be killed. However, there are numerous reasons to doubt this unsubstantiated claim. The source for this claim also stated that he was the leader of the Badr Corps and SCIRI: he is not. The probably false edict also stated that Sunnis should be attacked: this goes against Sistani's own previous fatwas.

UPDATE (03/19/06): Writing for Indybay, Juan Cole says much of the Sistani report is untrue:

the charge leveled by some, and mentioned at Pandagon, that Sistani has called for the killing of Sunnis, is completely untrue. The implication given by exiled gay Iraqi, Ali Hili, of the London-based gay human rights group OutRage, that Sistani has called for vigilante killings of gays, is untrue, though it is accurate that Sistani advises that the state make homosexual activity a capital crime; it is also accurate to call this "sick."

In contemporary Iraq, the legality of homosexuality would be determined by statute passed by parliament (or by provincial assemblies), and if it were illegal, sentencing would be carried out by civil judges. Sistani is here acting as a jurisconsult, saying what he thinks Islamic canon law requires. But Iraq is not governed, or not solely governed, by shariah or Islamic canon law.

The Iraqi constitution adopted on October 15 contains a provision that no law be passed directly contradicting the established laws of Islam, but another article says that no law may be passed that is contrary to human rights standards. Given that homosexuality has never been such a big an issue in the Middle East (and for long stretches some sort of homosociality was accepted elite practice) that its prohibition would rise to the level of an "established" Islamic law (thawabit ahkam al-Islam), one wonders if Iraqi law will really take this direction. Certainly, it would not be in accord with the other provision, concerning basic human rights.

Huh. Something smells here. For starters, Sistani is not the head of either SCIRI or the Badr Corps; he stays out of politics. Sistani is a moderate. He’s called for unity between Sunnis and Shi’ites several times, and he’s repeatedly ordered Shia not to respond in kind to Sunni acts of violence. In at least one case that I personally know of, he summoned Muqtada Sadr to Najaf and reamed him out for causing death and pain to Iraqis in the name of power. He’s expressed no opinion about homosexuals in at least two years. For him to issue a fatwa on either group is not like him.

Something really smells here. To, to recap:

1.Not the leader of these groups.
2. Not known for homophobia.
3. Has issued fatwas, but they tend to be in the nature of calming things down, not stirring things up.

There’s that word ‘reportedly’ there which makes me wonder what actually is going on. But I find this almost impossible to believe.