Powerful Iraqi Cleric Call for Disarmament

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Powerful Iraqi Cleric Call for Disarmament
By Bruce Wallace and Saad Fakhrildeen
Special to The Times

8:56 AM PDT, April 27, 2006

NAJAF, Iraq — Reaching across a sectarian divide, Iraq's highest-ranking Shiite Muslim cleric called on militias to disarm today, saying only government forces should be permitted to carry weapons on the streets.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Iranian-born religious leader regarded as the Shiite majority's most powerful moral voice, also urged Iraqis to form a government blind to religious and ethnic differences.

"Weapons must be in the hands of government security forces that should not be tied to political parties but to the nation," said a statement of remarks released by Sistani's office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

"The first task for the government is fighting insecurity and putting an end to the terrorist acts that threaten innocents with death and kidnapping."

Leaders of Iraq's Sunni minority have claimed to be under siege from marauding gangs of Shiite gunmen, some alleged to be working within the government's own security forces.

Sistani's statement followed a visit to his home in Najaf by Prime Minister-designate Nouri Maliki. The new Iraqi leader came to pay political homage to Sistani while in the midst of trying to form a government acceptable to all of Iraq's fractious political parties, some of whose claim to power is backed by heavily armed militias.

The new leader is getting plenty of advice as he works to pull a government together.

Many here worry Maliki may be forced to fill key government posts according to a sectarian formula for sharing power across the spectrum of Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties.

Avoiding a government with sectarian hues was the main subject of discussions between Maliki and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit, along with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, to Baghdad this week. Rice left for Bulgaria later today, telling reporters in the heavily guarded Green Zone she was convinced Maliki and his advisors were committed to appointing ministers based on competence.

"Obviously, the key now is to get the government up and running, to get ministers who are capable and who also will reflect the value of a national unity government, and then to get about the work of dealing with the security situation, dealing with the economic situation," she said, according to news agencies.

But it was the unusually direct political intervention from Sistani that rang loudest here. The cleric is regarded as the voice of Shiite moderation, though he prefers to exercise his influence through subtle backroom whispers. Last week, it was a nudge from Sistani that contributed to the decision by interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari to abandon his quest to keep the top job in the face of great opposition.

Sistani was more direct today. Maliki emerged from their meeting to tell reporters that the cleric had "advised us, as always, to be Iraqis first."

Maliki also said his government would merge militias into the legitimate state security forces, a proposal that challenges the power of some of his own strongest backers, notably radical cleric Muqtada Sadr.

The two men held a joint news conference in which Sadr denounced the Rice-Rumsfeld visit for "its blatant interference in Iraqi affairs," repeated his call for an end to the U.S. occupation, but dodged the question of whether he would disband his own militia known as the Al Mahdi army.

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch today said insurgent attacks in Baghdad had decreased by 10% last week and said the number of victims of ethnic and sectarian violence in the capital was the lowest last week since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

"We don't see us moving toward a civil war in Iraq," he said. "In fact we're seeing a movement away."

But the violence continued at a steady throb across Iraq. The sister of Tariq Hashemi, Iraq's new vice president and leading Sunni politician, was killed along with her bodyguard in a drive-by shooting as she left home for work in Baghdad.

The murder came just two weeks after one of Hashemi's brothers was assassinated, and two days after a video from Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi declared that Sunnis who cooperated with the new government were American "agents" and would be killed.

Elsewhere, three Italian and a Romanian soldier died in a roadside bombing of their convoy near their base in Nasiriyah, 200 miles south of Baghdad. There were also clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in Ramadi.

Police said 16 bodies were also recovered in Baghdad and other cities, victims of execution-style killings.

Timers staff writer Wallace contributed from Baghdad and Fakhrildeen from Najaf. Staff writer Borzou Daragahi