Zarqawi urges Iraqi Sunnis to shun Shi’ites: Web

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi called on fellow Sunnis to reject any reconciliation
with “infidel” Shi’ites, according to an audio tape posted on
the Internet on Thursday.

“O Sunnis! Prepare to get rid of the infidel snakes and
their poison … and don’t listen to those advocating an end to
sectarianism and calling for national unity. This is a weapon
to get you to surrender,” said the speaker on the tape who
sounded like Zarqawi.

Iraq’s new national unity government vowed last month to
rein in violence and heal the country’s sectarian wounds.

The audio tape, posted on an Islamist Web site often used
by Iraqi insurgent groups, could not be authenticated.

The speaker blasted Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, as the “leader of infidelity and atheism” and
said his followers were more concerned about honoring their own
saints than protesting against cartoons of Islam’s Prophet
Mohammad published in Danish and other European newspapers.

“We did not see them rise up with the same fervor when
blasphemous pictures of the Prophet were published because they
prefer their own leaders to God and his Prophet,” he said.

The speaker accused Shi’ite groups and government forces of
being responsible for numerous attacks on Sunnis and their
places of worship.

He suggested that Shi’ites themselves were behind the
February bombing of a Shi’ite shrine and other attacks which
touched off a wave of sectarian killings and revenge attacks.

“The attacks were a charade … that revealed their
(Shi’ites’) hatred of the Sunnis,” the speaker said.

The tape, which was issued in three parts totaling about
four hours, covered what the speaker said were examples of the
Shi’ites’ enmity toward Islam throughout history.

The speaker criticized a militia loyal to radical Shi’ite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for stopping their fight against U.S.
forces after uprisings in 2004 against U.S. troops.

The speaker also attacked Lebanon’s Shi’ite guerrilla group
Hizbollah, and said majority-Shi’ite Iran had helped the United
States in Afghanistan and was in contact with Washington over
Iraq.

Zarqawi’s last message was a rare video issued in April, in
which he denounced the new Shi’ite-led government which also
include minority Kurds and Sunnis and said it was set up to
help Washington find a way out of its predicament in Iraq.