Senior Sunni Cleric Calls for Holy War against U.S. Forces in Iraq
Agence France Presse
Friday 16 July 2004
Ramadi, Iraq - A senior Sunni cleric called on his followers to launch a holy war
against the US forces in Iraq and threatened to turn the hotspot city of Ramadi into a
"graveyard" for American troops.
"I ask US President (George W.) Bush to withdraw from Iraq or else Ramadi will
become a graveyard for US soldiers," declared Sheikh Akram Ubayed Furaih at weekly
prayers in the city, 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Baghdad.
"I call upon my brothers the Shiites and on all other religious groups to embark
on a Jihad (holy war) against the US military to force them out of Iraq," said the
cleric, who spent three months in a prison after being arrested by the US military and
whose home was also raided last week.
"I urge all the Iraqi people to fight a holy war against the Americans," said the
cleric, among the most respected figures in this Sunni rebel bastion in the heart of
Al-Anbar province.
Using slightly more moderate tones, two other Sunni clerics from the Muslim
Scholars' Association spoke out against conditions in military detention centres run
by the US-led coalition.
"We have received messages from inmates at Um Qasr (detention centre on the border
with Kuwait) describing their suffering during this hot weather," said Ahmed Abdel
Gafur Samarrai, addressing a crowd at the Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad.
He called on the United Nations to intervene on behalf of the detainees.
"The United Nations must do something because it granted a legitimacy to the
occupation, but this legitimacy has been lost due to the actions that have taken
place," said Samarrai in reference to the thousands of Iraqis locked away on suspicion
of involvement in the persistent insurgency that dogged the 14-month US-led
occupation.
In another Sunni mosque in the capital, Shiek Hassan Samarrai took the same line
of criticism.
Both clerics made reference to a protest sit-in organised by the Iraqi Islamic
Party at the doors of the detention centre in Um Qasr.
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