BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said on Friday that an early election was the only way out of the current unrest gripping the country and a new government should be formed soon.
More than 450 people, mostly unarmed demonstrators but also some members of the security forces, have been killed since a wave of popular unrest began on Oct. 1. Protesters, most of them young, are demanding an overhaul of a political system they see as profoundly corrupt and keeping most Iraqis in poverty.