Al-Qaida-affiliated group calls Iraq reconciliation "betrayal"

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Media: The Associated Press
Byline: n/a
Date: 31 August 2006


CAIRO, Egypt_An al-Qaida-affiliated group Thursday branded the Iraqi
government offers of reconciliation as "futile" and called on Sunnis to
fight those who "legalized the shedding of Muslim blood."

The statement appeared on a Web site used by the Mujahedeen Shura Council,
an umbrella organization of Sunni extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in
Iraq. The statement said Sunnis in Iraq were facing aggressive attacks by
the government and the Shiite militias and called for resistance.

"The Shiite attacks on the Sunni people have been intensified these days
especially in the northern parts of the capital which included mortar
shelling and burning of mosques that coincided with the increase of
assassination and kidnapping campaigns," the statement said.

"You the Sunni people, you have no other choice but to fight those who ..
legalized the shedding of the Muslim blood. The reconciliation efforts are
futile with those who adopted lies as a religion and betrayal as worship."

The statement said the attacks targeted the Sunni districts of Baghdad
including Azamiyah, Dora, Amiriya and Ghazaliyah.

Those areas have been the focus of a U.S.-led crackdown on Sunni and Shiite
extremists responsible for the rise in sectarian tension.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has proposed a national
reconciliation program which includes amnesty to unspecified groups that
agree to lay down their arms.

But religious extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists have been excluded.
 
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