Salman the Persian
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, especially the major ones in Baghdad, and calling for seven days of mourning. He hinted that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government was incapable of protecting holy shrines. On February 25 Sistani called for Iraq's powerful tribes to be deployed to protect the country's holy places after three attacks on Shia shrines in four days: "Ayatollah Sistani, who received a tribal delegation from Kufa, asked that the Iraqi tribes reclaim their role of protecting the shrines," said an official in Sistani's office in the Shia clerical center of Najaf. ... After the crimes against the places of worship, including the blowing up of the mausoleum in Samarra and the attacks against the tombs of Salman the Persian and Imam Ali bin Mussa al-Rida, the tribes must take a stand and claim a role in the protection of these sites."