Iraq Muslim Cleric Hate
Arrest warrant against top cleric enrages Sunnis
Reuters
November 22, 2004
Baghdad: An arrest warrant issued for Iraq's top Sunni Muslim cleric enraged his followers on Friday, deepening an increasingly violent sectarian divide that Washington has pressed the Shiite-led government to heal.
The Islamic Party, the biggest Sunni political party in Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's national unity government, said the move was the "mercy bullet" that would finish off a reconciliation plan that seeks to reach out to disaffected minority Sunnis.
At Friday prayers, Sunni preachers condemned the warrant of arrest for Shaikh Harith Al Dari, which Interior Minister Jawad Al Bolani, a Shiite, dramatically announced on Thursday night.
Bolani said Al Dari, who has backed insurgent attacks on US troops as "legitimate resistance", was wanted on suspicion of terrorism and stirring up sectarian division.
"If Harith
Al Dari is arrested we will bring down the government and burn Baghdad," said
Khalid Abdullah, a Sunni cleric in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
He and fellow Sunni preachers accused the government of pursuing a sectarian
agenda by seeking to arrest Al Dari while failing to curb death squads loyal to
Shiite parties.
The government hastily sought to distance itself from the warrant for Al Dari, secretary-general of the influential Muslim Clerics Association, which immediately called on Sunni parties to pull out of the government in protest.
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said the warrant had been issued by the judiciary, not the government, which is struggling to contain a three-year-old Sunni Muslim insurgency and sectarian bloodshed that has killed thousands.
"There are some cases that are under investigation and it is up to the Iraqi judiciary to take the decisions," Salih said.
Salih told Al Arabiya television the government would call a meeting of moderate Iraqi leaders within days to discuss the security situation.
"There is a real struggle going on that is getting deeper. It is not a sectarian struggle but a struggle between extremists and moderates. It is time for the moderates to come together."
In response
to charges that he supports Al Qaida, Al Dari says he does not back insurgents
who target innocent civilians.
"I do not bestow legitimacy on anyone who harms our people or works against the
interests of Iraq ... I bestow legitimacy on the Iraqi resistance that resists
the occupation," he told Al Jazeera.