Warrant issued for influential Sunni

[ProSense]

Warrant issued for influential Sunni

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer
37 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant Thursday for the head of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, speaking on state television, said Harith al-Dhari was wanted for inciting terrorism and violence among the Iraqi people. Al-Dhari is the top leader for the country's Sunni minority, and the move against him was likely to inflame sectarian violence already ravaging Baghdad and central Iraq.

Association spokesman Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi told Al-Jazeera television the interior ministry's decision "is condemned with all its details. I don't know how to describe it but it represents the bankruptcy of the sectarian government following one scandal after the other."

Al-Faidi accused the interior minister "of supporting terrorism by covering for militias that are killing the Iraqi people. ... The decisions of this government are worthless because it only rules the Green Zone."

On Tuesday, President Jalal Talabani called al-Dhari a hard-liner with "nothing to do but incite sectarian and ethnic sedition."

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