Clerics Call for Restraint as More Violence Hits Iraq

"BAGHDAD — Clerics on both sides of Iraq's Sunni-Shiite divide scrambled Friday to calm believers on the Muslim holy day amid ongoing violence that claimed at least 25 more lives.

Eleven people were killed in a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Tuz Khurmatu. Three laborers were gunned down while waiting for jobs in the capital, and a Shiite cleric was assassinated in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The U.S. military said a Marine also had been killed Thursday in an explosion near Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

Sunni Arabs dominated Saddam Hussein's government and security ranks, and a Sunni-driven insurgency has targeted U.S.-led forces, as well as Iraq's interim government and the ascendant Shiite majority.

Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant who claims to lead the Al Qaeda terrorist network's affiliate in Iraq, has taken responsibility for some of the worst violence. He declared war this week on Shiites in retaliation for an Iraqi-American offensive in the northern city of Tall Afar."
LATimes