BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday criticised Arab and Muslim countries for their silence on calls by a senior Saudi cleric for Shiite scholars to be killed.
The Iraqi leader made the remarks a day after a massive bomb in the predominantly Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad killed 62 people and wounded 150.
"We have observed that many governments have been suspiciously silent on the fatwa provoking the killing" of Shiites, Maliki, who is also Shiite, said in an e-mailed statement.
He was referring to comments made by Mecca Mufti Sheikh Adil al-Kalbani last month to the BBC that "Shiite clerics are infidels."
"The Shiites have no right to be represented in the (Saudi) senior scholarly committee," Kalbani said.
"The Shiite public, it's a matter of discussion (as to whether they are infidels). Shiite clerics are definitely infidels, without question."
According to Islam, it is permitted to kill infidels and not have to pay the victim's family blood money.
Shiites make up the majority of the population in Iraq, which has been hit by several attacks against mainly Shiite areas this month -- apart from the Sadr City explosion, at least 72 were killed by a truck bomb in a Shiite Turkmen town near the northern city of Kirkuk.
Also this month, a market town in the largely peaceful Shiite province of Dhi Qar was struck by a car bomb that killed 19.
The attacks come in the run-up to a June 30 deadline by which US troops must leave Iraqi cities, towns and villages.
"As June 30 approaches ... the rage of the instigators of sectarian strife grows," Maliki said, blaming "those who nourish them with Takfiri (Sunni extremist) ideology."
He added that "the recent series of terrorist crimes ... are only as a result of those dangerous opinions, which are being carried out in a plan that aims to awaken sectarianism, create chaos, abort the political process and prevent Iraqi people from standing on their own feet."
"We call upon the international community, Arab and Islamic countries in particular, to declare a clear position about these horrific crimes," he said. "Silence is no longer an acceptable or friendly position towards the Iraqi people."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
