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Angry Sunnis shut Baghdad mosques
Sunni mosques in Baghdad have been closed to worshippers as part of a three-day protest against a recent series of killings of Sunni Muslims.
Traditional calls to prayer came with an additional request that the faithful say their prayers wherever they were.
The action comes at a time of growing tension between the Sunni community and Iraq's Shia majority.
Sunni clerics have accused a Shia militia known as the Badr brigades of involvement in the killings.
The brigades, which are affiliated to one of the main parties in the new government, have rejected the accusation.
Meanwhile a group of about 1,000 leading Sunni Arabs, meeting in Baghdad, called for the resignation of Interior Minister Bayan Baqir Solagh over the deaths.
"We ask for the creation of an independent investigation team to look into the murders, the torture of detainees and we demand the interior minister's dismissal," a statement by the group said.
In other developments:
* Two Iraqis said to be acting suspiciously are shot dead on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, the Iraqi military says
* The bodies of three civilians shot dead on Thursday are found in an orchard near Latifiyah, south of the capital, security officials say.
Calls for unity
Shias in Iraq have been targeted by insurgents for many months in a series of car bombs thought to be aimed at provoking sectarian strife. There have also been assassinations of Shia clerics.
But over the past few weeks there has been a new string of unexplained killings.
Both Sunnis and Shias have been murdered - among them two Sunni clergymen whose bodies were discovered four days ago.
The deaths are part of what has prompted the mosque protest.
On Friday the political leader of Iraq's largest Shia party, Abdul Aziz Hakim, appealed to Iraqis to unite against attempts to divide them.
But the BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad says tensions between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority are growing despite the calls for restraint.
Some here have begun to fear that Iraq could be dragged into civil war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4569103.stm
The action comes at a time of growing tension between the Sunni community and Iraq's Shia majority.
Sunni clerics have accused a Shia militia known as the Badr brigades of involvement in the killings.
The brigades, which are affiliated to one of the main parties in the new government, have rejected the accusation.
Meanwhile a group of about 1,000 leading Sunni Arabs, meeting in Baghdad, called for the resignation of Interior Minister Bayan Baqir Solagh over the deaths.
"We ask for the creation of an independent investigation team to look into the murders, the torture of detainees and we demand the interior minister's dismissal," a statement by the group said.
In other developments:
* Two Iraqis said to be acting suspiciously are shot dead on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, the Iraqi military says
* The bodies of three civilians shot dead on Thursday are found in an orchard near Latifiyah, south of the capital, security officials say.
Calls for unity
Shias in Iraq have been targeted by insurgents for many months in a series of car bombs thought to be aimed at provoking sectarian strife. There have also been assassinations of Shia clerics.
But over the past few weeks there has been a new string of unexplained killings.
Both Sunnis and Shias have been murdered - among them two Sunni clergymen whose bodies were discovered four days ago.
The deaths are part of what has prompted the mosque protest.
On Friday the political leader of Iraq's largest Shia party, Abdul Aziz Hakim, appealed to Iraqis to unite against attempts to divide them.
But the BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad says tensions between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority are growing despite the calls for restraint.
Some here have begun to fear that Iraq could be dragged into civil war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4569103.stm
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The organization's first act was to call for the immediate resignation of Shiite Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, as many Sunni Arabs blame Shiite-dominated security and defense forces for complicity in the recent killings of numerous Sunni clerics.
Jabr denied allegations that the government had anything to do with the killing of Sunni clerics and dismissed calls to resign.
"No one has the right to call for the resignation of a minister, only parliament can do that. Those who didn't get one vote have no right to ask," he said, referring to the fact that many Sunnis stayed away from Jan. 30 elections either in protest or fear of attacks.
In violence Saturday, eight members of an elite Interior Ministry force known as the Wolf Brigade were killed in a pre-dawn ambush on their 20-vehicle convoy in downtown Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Nadar Adil said. The Wolf Brigade is one of the groups implicated by the Sunnis in the killings of their clerics.
Two U.S. Army Apache attack helicopters later arrived on the scene and began firing their guns at targets near the ambush site, Associated Press Television News footage showed.
The decision to create the new group was made by more than 1,000 representatives of Sunni tribes, political parties and religious leaders gathered in Baghdad. The organization, which doesn't yet have a name, will first open an office in Baghdad, then branch out across the nation.
"The decisions taken by this body will be shared by all Sunnis parties and movements, Islamists, independents, merchants, military officers, heads of tribes and workers," said Adnan al-Duleimi, the head of the Sunni Endowment.
The charitable organization was one of three main Sunni groups to back the formation of the new organization. The others were the influential Association of Muslim Scholars and the Iraqi Islamic Party.
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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=777837