By Steven R. Hurst - BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's most senior Sunni politician issued a desperate appeal yesterday for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shi'ite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran. Adnan al-Dulaimi said "Persians" and "Safawis" — Sunni terms for Iranian Shi'ites — were on the brink of total control in Baghdad and soon would threaten Sunni Arab regimes that predominate in the Middle East. "It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands," Mr. al-Dulaimi wrote in an impassioned e-mail to the Associated Press.
"halp us, jon kery, we're stuk in iraq"
Sunni Arab regimes throughout the Middle East fear the growing influence of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy with radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as the Syrian regime. But Mr. al-Dulaimi's warning about the specter of Iranian power reaching the Arab doorstep seemed unrealistic in the short term.
His fears of a Shi'ite takeover of Baghdad, however, are not as far-fetched. Mahdi Army militiamen have cleansed entire neighborhoods of Sunni residents and seized Sunni mosques. Hundreds have been killed and thousands have fled their homes, seeking safety in the shrinking number of majority Sunni districts.
The fighters, nominally loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are thought to operate as death squads blamed for much of the country's sectarian slaughter.
Sunni extremists, many with al Qaeda links, are responsible too, mainly through massive bombings, often carried out by suicide attackers.
| A fact that Mr. al-Dulaimi neglected to point out. |
Mr. al-Dulaimi heads the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament. The coalition of parties pulled its six Cabinet ministers from Mr. al-Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated government on Aug. 1. Five days later, government ministers loyal to former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, began a boycott of Cabinet meetings. That left the government without any Sunni Arab members, except the politically unaffiliated defense minister.
Major political figures were expected to hold a rare summit with Mr. al-Maliki this week in Baghdad to address the government crisis.