Curfew stalls Iraq bloodshed

A daytime curfew in Baghdad and calls for Muslim unity from mosques across the country yesterday damped down sectarian violence that has left 200 dead in the Iraqi capital alone over the past three days.

Though tens of thousands of Shi'ite supporters of militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr defied the ban to march to weekly prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City stronghold and his Mehdi Army militia was involved in clashes, there was little bloodshed and the pulpit appeals may have nudged Iraq back from the brink of civil war.

"We are not enemies but brothers," Sadr told his followers. A senior Shi'ite politician said: "Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, and political leaders have made great efforts and the situation is better. But to be honest, Iraq is still in the danger zone."

Dozens of reprisal attacks on minority Sunni mosques since a suspected al Qaeda bomb destroyed a major Shi'ite shrine on Wednesday have stalled talks on a national unity government that US President George W. Bush says is the key to the stability that would let him bring home 136,000 American troops.

"This is a moment of choosing for the Iraqi people," Mr Bush said of their gravest crisis since US forces toppled Saddam Hussein three years ago. "The coming days will be intense."

Untested, US-trained Iraqi police and troops blocked roads across Baghdad. US patrols, widely resented by both sides, kept a low profile but commanders positioned a rapid reaction force round Baghdad. A night curfew will end early today. The new Iraqi forces are drawn heavily from rival militias, and their loyalty will be tested if they have to intervene.

US Colonel Jeffrey Snow said if Iraqi forces needed help "we would be able to respond in a quick fashion".

Elsewhere, including the second city of Basra which has also seen violence, there was neither a curfew nor much trouble.

Police sources said 20 people had been killed around Baghdad, compared with nearly 180 over the preceding two days.

Mehdi Army fighters and suspected Sunni gunmen clashed in southern Baghdad during the night and morning, police said.

City centre streets - and mosques - were largely deserted but in neighbourhoods where people felt confident they were among fellow Sunnis or Shi'ites crowds walked to prayers to hear sermons calling for Muslim unity and warning against division.

"Anyone who attacks a Muslim is not a Muslim and he who assaults sacraments and mosques shall get his just punishment," said a statement from Sadr, whose Mehdi Army is one of a number of rival Shi'ite militias to have been on the streets this week.

State television read out a lengthy statement in a similar vein from Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the pro-Iranian SCIRI party which runs the heavily armed Shi'ite Badr movement.

"What happened at the (Shi'ite) shrine was an attempt to divide Muslims," a Sunni preacher in Baghdad told worshippers.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shi'ite, said the state would rebuild mosques and may give them a special guard force.

"Each side is trying to calm its people down," one senior government official told Reuters. "But it's still tough."

The US ambassador, who angered Shi'ites earlier this week by publicly pressuring the Islamists to make room in government for Sunnis, said: "The events of the last few days reinforce the need for Iraq to have a government of national unity."

"It is a moment of danger but also a moment of opportunity," Zalmay Khalilzad, a key player in the talks, told reporters.

The main Sunni bloc pulled out of coalition negotiations that followed its participation in a December election; it accused Shi'ite leaders of fomenting the revenge attacks after the destruction of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque in Samarra.

Iraqi and US officials blamed the bloodless but symbolic attack on al Qaeda; it in turn accused Shi'ites of carrying out the bombing to provide an excuse for attacks on Sunnis.

"If the situation continues there will be a civil war," said Mohammed, a rare Baghdadi venturing out in the city centre.