(Adds Dari quote, paragraph 9)

By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Iraq's top Sunni cleric said on Sunday the Shi'ite-led government had trumped up terrorism charges against him to undermine his role defending a community which he said faces the brunt of sectarian killings.

Sheikh Harith al-Dari was issued with an arrest warrant on Thursday by the Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, a Shi'ite, in a move that enraged Iraq's Sunni minority which is at the heart of a three-year-old insurgency.

"The government wanted to instigate a crisis to silence me after we exposed the mass murders and sectarian killings by militias of Shi'ite parties that form the main grouping in the government," he told Reuters in a phone interview in Amman where he is currently staying.

The leader of the Muslim Clerics Association, an umbrella group of Iraq's Sunni Muslim religious leaders, Dari accused the government of abetting the mass killings of Sunnis that he said has now reached between 150 to 350 deaths daily -- significantly higher than most other estimates for Iraq's total daily toll.

The latest was the kidnapping by men in uniform of tens of Sunnis from a government ministry last week, Dari said.

Iraq has been riven by sectarian violence for months and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been unable to disband militias and death squads who appear to operate with impunity.

Maliki said last month the militias were "not acceptable", but were not the main reason for Iraq's security problems.

ALIENATING SUNNIS

Dari said the announcement of the warrant for his arrest would further alienate Sunnis already sceptical of efforts to draw them into the political process.

"The arrest warrant destroyed all hopes of reconciliation."

Dari, the best known Sunni religious authority in Iraq, said the government was enraged by his visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this month when he was warmly received by King Abdullah.

"This has particularly incensed them (the government). They have always tried hard over the last three and half years to isolate us from our Arab brothers," Dari said.

Many Shi'ite Iraqis accuse Saudi Arabia, a majority Sunni country, of financing the insurgency to undermine their newly empowered status after decades of marginalisation.

Saudis are among many Arabs who have gone to Iraq to join the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed government which is dominated by Shi'ites.

Dari accused the American military of using "mercenary" tribal sheikhs from Anbar province -- heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency and the deadliest part of Iraq for U.S. forces -- to divide his community.

"This policy of divide and rule to defeat the resistance is doomed. The Iraqis will emerge victorious," he said.

Washington says this split in the Sunni community could defeat Islamist militants by creating an alliance between tribal leaders who have clout among traditionally minded Arabs against followers of Osama bin Laden who are now gaining more followers.

Dari said the Americans and their Iraqi supporters had let Shi'ite militias operate against the insurgency with impunity.

"In the last phase the Americans have allowed (Shi'ite) militias a free rein to allow them to defeat the resistance. They are fuelling the sectarian divisions to preoccupy Iraqis and divert their attention from their presence," Dari said.

AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit