Iraqi Sunnis lay out conditional offer to join unity government

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By Raheem Salman and Michael Georgy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Tribal leaders and clerics from Iraq's Sunni heartland offered their conditional backing on Friday for a new government that hopes to contain sectarian bloodshed and an offensive by Islamic State militants that threatens tear the country apart. One of the most influential tribal leaders said he was willing to work with Shi'ite prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi provided a new administration respected the rights of the Sunni Muslim minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Ali Hatem Suleiman left open a possibility that Sunnis would take up arms against the Islamic State fighters in the same way as he and others joined U.S. and Shi'ite-led government forces to thwart an al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq between 2006 and 2009. Abadi faces the daunting task of pacifying the vast western desert province of Anbar, where Sunni frustrations with the sectarian policies of outgoing Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki have goaded some to join the Islamic State insurrection.




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