Allawi "I will cut my hands"

db: The 'Butcherer of Fallujah' is staying with his claims that he was 'nearly' assassinated. All those sandals raining down on him - in front of CNN - wounded him more painfully than any assassins bullet might have done.

reuters: Former PM Allawi stands by assassination claim

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Monday stood by a claim that he was nearly assassinated in a mosque in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf and suggested unidentified foreigners may have been involved.

Allawi said in Sunday's attack men in and around the Imam Ali shrine, Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrine, had been armed with guns and long knives. He fled the mosque when an angry crowd pelted him with rocks, tomatoes and shoes.

"I got hit with a stone here," said Allawi, pointing to a small mark on the right side of his chin. "I think they aimed the stone at my upper head in an attempt to knock me down."

He told reporters that a man armed with a pistol appeared to be waiting for him to fall before he could shoot. He said on Sunday a gunman had taken aim but dropped his gun.

Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, is mounting a challenge to ruling Shi'ite Islamists in the Dec. 15 election for Iraq's first full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Allawi has not said who was responsible for Sunday's attack, but soon after the incident he dropped broad hints that Islamist militias were likely to blame.

On Monday he suggested his assailants may have been foreigners.

"I will cut my hands off if these people have anything to do with Najaf ... or Iraq for that matter," said Allawi, who once survived an attack by axe-wielding Saddam agents. Read more

db: Go on then, cut 'em off!