IRAQ: Iraq PM urges tribes to join plan to end sectarian strife and terrorism, as violence continues.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged hundreds of tribal leaders gathered in Baghdad on Saturday (August 26) to unite to end the bitter sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Shi'ites that has raised fears of civil war. "Iraq needs all of its sons during this stage and Iraq is for all its people. There is no difference between Arabs, Kurds and Turkemen and a Muslim and a Christian and there is no difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites," he told the meeting, the first in a series to promote dialogue between the warring sects as part of his national reconciliation programme. Washington says a major security crackdown by troops in Baghdad, where the communal bloodshed is worst, is not a durable solution to Iraq's instability and must be accompanied by movement on the political front. "National reconciliation is a wide door, open to all those who want to take part in rebuilding the country and reconciliation is a chance to review stands and opinions. It does not mean the search for the best chances to besiege differences and violence. It is a chance to resort to logic and reason. It also provides a horizon for forgiveness and a chance for dialogue to overcome the logic of violence," Maliki said. The national reconciliation drive hopes to distance Iraq from an all-out civil war and stop communal violence that is killing thousands of Iraqis every month. The conference is first of the four that will be held across Iraq by the new national reconciliation committee, which was set up to heal the deep divisions between the country's major sects, the Shiite and Sunnis, and to bring Sunni Arab insurgents into the political mainstream. "Your meeting today is not a casual meeting, but is a starting point towards comprehensive national reconciliation. Brothers, you have norms and traditions in reconciliation and we promise you that your brothers and sons at the government and the state would join hands for the benefit of Iraq and all the Iraqis without exception," Maliki said. Shi'ites, the majority sect in Iraq, were oppressed under Saddam Hussein but now lead the government of national unity. Minority Sunnis were politically dominant under Saddam and form the backbone of the three-year-old insurgency. Tribes are a key element of the Iraqi society, wielding enormous influence over the clan members. Iraqi Muslims- whether Shiite, Sunni or Kurd- owe as much allegiance to their tribes as to the leaders of their sects. The government hopes tribal leaders can exercise influence over their tribes, but it is unclear how effective they can be among Iraqis increasingly turning to religious leaders for guidance. The sectarian violence -a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks- started after a Feb. 22 bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in Samarra, posing a new headache for the Shiite-dominated government already reeling from frequent bomb attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents. There was no let-up in the last days. Gunmen attacked a Shi'ite family northeast of Baghdad on Saturday, killing four and wounding 11 others. The attack took place in the religiously-mixed town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of the Iraqi capital. Among the dead were two women and two children. The family had previously received Sunni insurgent threats and were moving out of their home when the attack took place, police said. Television footage showed relatives picking up the body of a small boy from the morgue and driving him away in a coffin for a quick burial in accordance with Islamic laws. U.S. tanks shelled a mosque in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi on Friday (August 25) after coming under rocket-propelled grenade and machine gun fire from the building, the U.S. military said. A doctor at Ramadi hospital told Reuters three people had been killed and 22 wounded by the U.S. fire, which the U.S. military said was provoked by a "complex attack" that also included hand grenades and improvised explosives. The mosque suffered serious structural damage to the dome and minaret, it said, adding that one soldier had been slightly hurt in the attack. "The tanks arrived and started to shell and the sniper was stationed there. The tank moved towards here. Some of the worshippers were martyred and others were wounded. We do not know how many. Some of the people have managed to go out from here, through holes gouged on the walls while cars started to transport the wounded. We do not know the number of the people who were martyred, but most of those killed were children who could not manage to escape," said Adnan Naji, the mosque's prayer caller. Ramadi is the capital of the restive Anbar province, a centre of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces. American forces have come under frequent attack in Ramadi, one of the most violent cities in Iraq. And in the northeast town of Baiji, an oil fire raged on Friday after saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline, witnesses and oil officials said. The blast, which hit an oil line carrying crude oil from the oil fields of the nearby oil city of Kirkuk to the Baiji refinery 180 km north of Baghdad, caused a massive fire that was still burning on Saturday (August 26), witnesses said. Television footage showed orange fireballs and thick black smoke billowing from the damaged pipeline in a desert area. Relentless attack on the country's oil infrastructure are an important part of the insurgency's activities and have cost Iraq huge financial losses in exports since the March 2003 US-led invasion.

ITN Source | August 26, 2006

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