Qom

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday in Iran's main theological center and clashed with pro-government militiamen during the funeral of the country's top dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. The demonstration in the city of Qom was significant both for its important location and its merging of several currents in Iran's population: It drew older supporters of Montazeri from smaller cities and towns in the countryside as well as young middle-class urbanites from the capital.

In the latest example of waning American influence in Iraq, anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr returned home from Iran, where he had gone in 2007 after his Shiite Muslim militia engaged in years of on-and-off battles with U.S. troops and was blamed for some of the country's worst sectarian violence. Sadr's surprise homecoming comes months after his supporters won 40 seats in the Iraqi parliament, allowing the Iranian-backed cleric to play a decisive role in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki securing a new term late last year after a lengthy period of political deadlock.

Whispering like conspirators, the two cousins hook their thumbs in their belt loops, skim cocky eyes over the women and swivel, stiff-legged from their hips, like the men they have become. Across the room, and a few steps away on the gender spectrum, a man with shaggy hair wrinkles a pug nose in the mirror and struggles to drape a silky scarf over his head in the style of Islamic womanhood.

Iran's supreme leader wrapped up an unprecedented 10-day visit to the Iranian seminary city of Qom on Friday that was widely seen as an attempt to bolster support among those in a clerical establishment either indifferent or hostile to his conservative agenda. FOR THE RECORD: Iran clergy: An article in the Oct. 30 Section A about Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and reform-minded clergy said an influential cleric, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, died 40 years ago. He died last year.

Iranian authorities announced that they have broken up two "terrorist networks" blamed for bombings that have killed 38 people and wounded more than 250 this year. Mohammed Reyshahri, Iranian information minister, said those arrested include monarchists seeking to restore the dynasty of the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and members of the Moujahedeen, which hopes to overthrow the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran's supreme leader wrapped up an unprecedented 10-day visit to the Iranian seminary city of Qom on Friday that was widely seen as an attempt to bolster support among those in a clerical establishment either indifferent or hostile to his conservative agenda. FOR THE RECORD: Iran clergy: An article in the Oct. 30 Section A about Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and reform-minded clergy said an influential cleric, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, died 40 years ago. He died last year.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini owned a plot of land and a house in the religious center of Qom--but no furniture, according to a list of his assets made public Wednesday. The list, compiled in 1981, was a constitutional requirement for senior Iranian officials, their wives and children, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Khomeini died June 3 of a heart attack, 11 days after undergoing surgery to halt internal bleeding. Khomeini wrote: "I have no furniture. The few items of furniture in Qom and Tehran belong to my wife," according to the official news agency report, which was monitored in Cyprus.

Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is continuing to make a good recovery after an operation last Tuesday and started taking liquid food orally Saturday, the Iranian news agency IRNA said. It said the 89-year-old leader is "doing perfectly well" after surgery to stop internal bleeding. Meanwhile, the Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who has been ousted as Khomeini's designated successor, resumed teaching Saturday at Qom theological college, IRNA said. The news agency said Montazeri opened his class with prayers for Khomeini's full recovery.

Mohammed Kazem Shariat-Madari, once the second-most-popular ayatollah in Iran behind Ruhollah Khomeini but who fell out with Khomeini over the extremes of the post-shah government, died Thursday of liver cancer in a Tehran hospital, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The official agency said Shariat-Madari, 87, recently was moved from the holy city of Qom to Tehran. Members of his family were with him when he died, the agency said.

A group of 554 clerics has demanded release of Iran's most prominent dissident, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who has been under house arrest in Qom since 1997. Montazeri's detention is "illegal and illegitimate" and should be lifted immediately, the clerics said in a petition to the country's senior religious authorities. Montazeri, 79, was once designated to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday in Iran's main theological center and clashed with pro-government militiamen during the funeral of the country's top dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. The demonstration in the city of Qom was significant both for its important location and its merging of several currents in Iran's population: It drew older supporters of Montazeri from smaller cities and towns in the countryside as well as young middle-class urbanites from the capital.

Reporting from Tehran and Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets today in Qom, Iran's main theological center, to mourn the passing of the country's top dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died late Saturday at the age of 87. Witnesses described a steady procession of mourners walking from Montazeri's home to the shrine of Fatemeh Masoumeh, where Montazeri was laid to...

As the head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency arrived in Iran on Saturday, the country's president declared that it had reported the existence of a new nuclear site earlier than required. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is in Tehran to arrange an inspection of the uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The revelation that Iran has been building the nuclear plant has heightened the concern of the United States and many of its allies, which suspect that Tehran is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for developing weapons-making capability.

For centuries, disciples of the spirit have come to this desert shrine town in search of guidance, power or solace. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani studied at the seminaries here as a young man before heading off to Iraq and eventually becoming Shiite Islam's most widely regarded scholar. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who lived here before his exile, returned to settle among the bearded and turbaned clerics after leading the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Whispering like conspirators, the two cousins hook their thumbs in their belt loops, skim cocky eyes over the women and swivel, stiff-legged from their hips, like the men they have become. Across the room, and a few steps away on the gender spectrum, a man with shaggy hair wrinkles a pug nose in the mirror and struggles to drape a silky scarf over his head in the style of Islamic womanhood.

A group of 554 clerics has demanded release of Iran's most prominent dissident, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who has been under house arrest in Qom since 1997. Montazeri's detention is "illegal and illegitimate" and should be lifted immediately, the clerics said in a petition to the country's senior religious authorities. Montazeri, 79, was once designated to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

A siege of car-bomb terror has gripped Iran's cities, the work of shadowy saboteurs who plant explosives in busy plazas, outside mosques and near bazaars in an apparent campaign to undermine the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's rule. Two explosions during the last four days in the Iranian capital of Tehran and the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom have killed 33 people and wounded at least 100.

Iran and Iraq attacked one another's cities with missile and air strikes Sunday as Iraqi troops sought to drive back Iranian reinforcements sent to bolster a three-day-old offensive near the port city of Basra in southeastern Iraq. An Iranian surface-to-surface missile landed on the outskirts of Baghdad shortly before 6 a.m., "martyring a number of people and wounding others," an Iraqi military spokesman said.

In the middle of the flat, palm-studded plains of southern Iraq, not far from the ancient banks of the Euphrates River, rises a shrine like none other in Islam. Its sculpted gold facade and intricately inscribed walls house the body of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed whose political will to lead the Prophet's descendants and subsequent death on these plains led to the birth of Shiite Islam.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini owned a plot of land and a house in the religious center of Qom--but no furniture, according to a list of his assets made public Wednesday. The list, compiled in 1981, was a constitutional requirement for senior Iranian officials, their wives and children, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Khomeini died June 3 of a heart attack, 11 days after undergoing surgery to halt internal bleeding. Khomeini wrote: "I have no furniture. The few items of furniture in Qom and Tehran belong to my wife," according to the official news agency report, which was monitored in Cyprus.