Three Electoral Contenders Carry Considerable Baggage -LAT

[Rose Siding]

NAJAF, Iraq — Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and his fellow religious scholars are the best-known leaders in this sacred Shiite Muslim city. But beneath the radar, three men actually control it.

Only one is a candidate in Sunday'selections. But what Governor Adnan Zurfi, Police Chief Ghalib Jazairi and Emergency Forces Director Abdel Aal Kufi have in common are reputations for unpredictable behavior and accusations of abuse of power.
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Jazairi, 57, was a career army officer but fled after Saddam's troops brutally crushed a 1991 Shiite uprising in the south. He has built a reputation for unpredictable statements and actions. In August, during the U.S. siege of Mahdi fighters in the shrine, Jazairi's officers rounded up journalists at gunpoint for a mandatory news conference.

Kufi, 33, spent time in exile in Iran and is the subject of rumors that he is illiterate and that his troops control the gasoline black market in a city chronically short on fuel.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-trio30jan30,0,4871885,print.story?coll=la-home-world