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Al-Qaida Threatens To Kill Sunni Leaders As Political Crisis Deepens

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By ROBERT H. REID, The Associated Press

Published: September 16, 2007

Updated: 09/15/2007 11:44 pm

BAGHDAD - An al-Qaida front group threatened to assassinate Sunni leaders who 'stained the reputations' of their people by supporting the Americans as the Iraqi government's parliament base fragmented Saturday with the defection of a hard-line Shiite bloc.

The two developments cast doubt over prospects for political and military progress in Iraq as the U.S. Senate gears up for a debate this week on Democratic demands for deeper and faster troop cuts than President Bush plans.

The threat against Sunni leaders came from the Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed responsibility for the assassination Thursday of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the mastermind of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida in Anbar province. Bush met Abu Risha at a U.S. base in Anbar this month and praised his courage.

In a Web posting, the Islamic State said it had formed 'special security committees' to track down and 'assassinate the tribal figures, the traitors, who stained the reputations of the real tribes by submitting to the soldiers of the Crusade' and the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

'We will publish lists of names of the tribal figures to scandalize them in front of our blessed tribes,' the statement added.

In a second statement, the purported head of the Islamic State, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, said he was 'honored to announce' a new Ramadan offensive in memory of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq killed last year in a U.S. airstrike.

Hours after the announcement, a car bomb exploded late Saturday in a mostly Shiite area of southwest Baghdad, killing at least 11 people lined up to buy bread at a bakery. Two of the dead were children, police said.

The blast occurred at the start of iftar, the evening meal at which Muslims break their dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast. The bloodshed was a blow to government hopes that a peaceful Ramadan would demonstrate the success of the seven-month operation in the capital.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military said a soldier was killed and four were wounded the day before when a bomb exploded near their foot patrol.

The Sunni revolt, which Abu Risha spearheaded, has led to a dramatic improvement in security in Anbar, although the province remains unstable. Nevertheless, the decline in violence in Ramadi and other Anbar cities has been one of the major success stories for the U.S. mission in Iraq.

A prominent Sunni sheik said the province's leaders would not be intimidated by threats and would continue efforts to drive out the terror movement.

'We as tribesmen will act against the al-Qaida and those standing behind it who do not want us to put an end to it,' Ali Hatem al-Suleiman said.

Still, the al-Qaida threats and the assassination of Abu Risha could cause tribal leaders in other provinces to reconsider plans to stand up against the terrorist movement.

With U.S. and Iraqi overtures to the Sunnis under threat, the government faced a deepening political crisis with the announcement that followers of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were withdrawing from the Shiite alliance in parliament. Al-Sadr's followers hold 30 of the 275 parliament seats and are crucial to the alliance's majority status.

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