A radical Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Mahmud al-Hasani al-Sarkhi, was reported on 6 February 2007, to be calling for an independent inquiry into what "many in Iraq now regard as a 'massacre' in which scores of women and children were killed." The Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, accused the government of concealing the truth about the event.[5]