Hakim: Sunnis causing 'sectarian genocide' of Shi'ites

Nouri al-Maliki, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr,
Harith al-Dhari and Massoud Barzani

BAGHDAD, Jan 8 (Reuters) - A powerful Iraqi Shi'ite leader said on Monday his majority community was a victim of "sectarian genocide", a new twist in a bitter exchange of accusations between Iraq's rival Muslim sects.

Sectarian attacks, bombings and mortars are killing hundreds of people every week in Baghdad, the epicentre of violence in Iraq. Tens of thousands of both Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs have fled their homes amid threats and violence on both sides.

Tension increased after the Shi'ite-led government hanged former president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, on Dec. 30 and video emerged showing Shi'ite officials taunting him on the gallows.

Last week, the government and the main Sunni clerical body traded accusations of fomenting sectarian violence.

In a speech to followers in Baghdad celebrating a Shi'ite holy day, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim accused other groups of trying to kill Shi'ites in what he called "sectarian genocide".

Though he did not use the word "Sunni", his use of terms describing non-Shi'ites made clear to listeners he was referring to militants from Saddam's once-dominant Sunni Arab minority.

Hakim is the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the biggest party in Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national unity cabinet.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

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