Leading Shi’ite cleric calls for end to ‘blind violence’

IRAQ’S top Shi’ite cleric yesterday urged his followers to refrain from reprisal violence against Sunnis, his strongest call yet for an end to increasing sectarian bloodshed.

The statement by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani came as US military officials reported a 40% increase in the daily average of attacks in the Baghdad area.

US spokesman Major General William Caldwell said there has been an average of 34 attacks a day against US and Iraqi forces in the capital over the past five days, while the daily average for the period June 14 until July 13 was 24 a day.

Maj Gen Caldwell said militias and death squads have responded to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call for a crackdown by intensifying attacks to derail Iraq’s new unity government.

Last month, Mr al-Maliki announced a security plan for Baghdad, including up to 50,000 police and soldiers on the streets, more checkpoints, and raids in neighbourhoods where violence is high. But with surging attacks in the capital — including the kidnapping of high-ranking Iraqi officials — leading politicians from Shi’ite and Sunni parties have declared the plan a failure.

The government said yesterday that Mr al-Maliki had dismissed security officials for failing to respond to a Monday attack south of Baghdad in which at least 51 people were killed. Suspected Sunni gunmen went on a rampage through a market in Mahmoudiya, shooting at shoppers and vendors. Most of the victims were Shi’ites.

Until now, Mr al-Sistani has been credited with restraining the majority Shi’ite community from retaliation against Sunnis in the face of horrific attacks on Shi’ite civilians by al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni religious extremists.

But the ability of the aged cleric to continue holding back Shi’ite militias and others has been called into question as attacks increase.

The United Nations said this week that about 6,000 civilians had been killed in May and June, many of them in sectarian violence.

Al-Sistani urged religious and community leaders to “exert maximum efforts to stop the bloodletting”. He warned that the ongoing violence will only prolong the presence of US-led forces in Iraq.

The cleric said the bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February had unleashed a “blind violence” that was sweeping the country.

Unless the violence stops, he said, it “will harm the unity of the people and block their hopes of liberation and independence for a long time.”