Iraq's al-Maliki plans crisis conference By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

Iraq's al-Maliki plans crisis conference By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 13 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Sunni politicians maintained a hard line Monday after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki invited key Sunni and Kurdish allies to a crisis conference in a desperate bid to reach a compromise among Iraq's divided factions.

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With the political process stalled, the U.S. military pressed ahead with its efforts to crackdown on the violence, launching a new offensive against extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide.

Operation Phantom Strike would build on the successes during recent offensives in Baghdad and surrounding areas, the military said.

The statement singled out Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq and said the Shiite extremists were being backed by Iran. The military has stepped up its rhetoric recently against Tehran, which is accused of supplying militias with arms and training to attack U.S. forces. Iran denies the allegations.

"Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces continue to achieve successes and pursue security throughout many areas of Iraq," the U.S. second-in-command Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno said. "My intent is to continue to pressure AQI and other extremist elements throughout Iraq to reduce their capabilities."

Iraqi judicial authorities also said the third trial against former officials with Saddam Hussein's ousted regime would begin on Aug. 21. Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and 14 other defendants will face charges in the brutal crushing of a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

Al-Maliki called for the meeting during a news conference Sunday and said he hoped it could take place in the next two days as he faces growing impatience with his government's perceived Shiite bias and failure to achieve reconciliation or to stop the sectarian violence threatening to tear the country apart.

It was a limited invite, including President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a moderate Sunni, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Abdul-Mahdi's office said he and Barzani would attend. Al-Hashemi's office said it planned to give its answer later Monday.

The prime minister also threatened to isolate the political blocs who have boycotted his Cabinet, suggesting they could be replaced by local Sunni tribal leaders who have recently formed alliances and joined U.S.-led efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq.

"We hope to end this crisis and that the ministers will return," al-Maliki said. "But if that doesn't happen, we will go to our brothers who are offering their help and we will choose ministers from among them."

But Iraq's minority Sunnis expressed growing anger over their perceptions of al-Maliki as a deeply biased sectarian leader with links to Iran and his failure to bring all sides together after taking office in May 2006 and promising a national unity government.

"It is one year and 4 months now that he has been in office and he is still leading a one-man rule and a sectarian policy," said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a senior member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab political party. "The country is on the verge of collapse."

"Is he going to give a cure after all this destruction? He has proved that he is a sectarian leader and a failure, the country is under the control of criminal gangs with the complete absence of an authority or government."

His sharp words came a day after Iraq's most senior Sunni politician, Adnan al-Dulaimi, issued a desperate appeal for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran.

Al-Dulaimi said "Persians" and "Safawis," Sunni terms for Iranian Shiites, were on the brink of total control in Baghdad and soon would threaten Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the Mideast.

"It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands," al-Dulaimi wrote in an impassioned e-mail Sunday to The Associated Press.

Sunni Arab regimes throughout the Middle East fear the growing influence of Iran's Shiite theocracy with radical groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Syrian regime. Raising the specter of Iranian power reaching the Arab doorstep, unlikely in the near term, betrayed al-Dulaimi's desperation.

But his fears of a Shiite takeover of Baghdad were not as farfetched. Mahdi Army militiamen have cleansed entire neighborhoods of Sunni residents and seized Sunni mosques. Day by day, 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 Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are believed to operate as death squads blamed for much of the country's sectarian slaughter.

Sunni extremists, many with al-Qaida links, are responsible too, mainly through massive bombings, often carried out by suicide attackers.

The 75-year-old al-Dulaimi heads the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament. The coalition of parties pulled its six Cabinet ministers from al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government Aug. 1.

Five days later, government ministers loyal to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, launched a boycott of Cabinet meetings. That left the government without any Sunni Arab members, except the politically unaffiliated defense minister.

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Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.