Kufah, Sept 01: Security forces have arrested two men after finding two cars laden with bombs amid warnings from clerics that Saddam Hussein loyalists or al-Qaeda members will strike over the next two days, officials said today. The men were arrested after cars they were travelling in were found loaded with explosives, said security spokesmen outside the Masjed al-Kufah mosque in the city, some 180 Kilometres (110 miles) south of Baghdad. "We found the seats (in one car stopped Sunday) were not well designed and had new covers. This raised our suspicion and we searched the seats and found them filled with bombs," a policemen who requested anonymity said.
"Yesterday we seized the same kind of car filled with bombs," he said, adding that that car was driven by two men from Yemen. The two men detained today were from the southern Iraqi city of Basra, he said.
The remains of Shiite cleric ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, murdered in a huge car bomb in nearby Najaf Friday that killed at least 82 others, were due to arrive here later today. Inside the mosque, clerics were calling on loudspeakers for people to "open their eyes" because "Saddam Hussein's followers and al-Qaeda will try today or tomorrow to make large explosions" in Kufah.
Police were conducting vehicle searches at most street corners here today.
Hakim's remains are expected to be kept here until Tuesday at the Masjed al-Kufah mosque, considered the oldest outside Saudi Arabia. Bureau Report