Handover to Iraqi Army 'set for the end of next year'

No "civil war" in Iraq after US withdrawal, leading Sunni says

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Friday November 10, 2006

Baghdad- The head of Iraq's Sunni Shura Council Sheikh Harith al-Dhari on Friday said he did not believe Iraqi would "slide into civil war" if US and British forces in the country were to withdraw. In an interview with news channel al-Arabiya, al-Dhari said: "If they were to pull out today, there would be no division and no civil war."

Al-Dhari, the secretary general of the influential Sunni representative group, blamed foreign forces, criminal gangs, the Iraqi government and its party militias as well as the "secret services of neighbouring countries" for the current chaotic security situation in Iraq.

"This is a political war, in which certain distinct interests are involved, but not a religious war between Sunnis and Shiites," he said.

The senior cleric accused the Iraqi government under Nuri al- Maliki of regarding "resistance fighters" engaged in an armed struggle against the occupation, in the same terms as extremists responsible for the killing of Iraqis.

The past months have seen the killings of a number of Shura Council members who had expressed sympathy with the "national resistance."

The Shura (consultative) council includes representatives of the main currents among Sunni Muslims, the political Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi movement (religious puritans) and the mystical Sufi tradition. Further representatives are ethnic Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.