Iraq's Grand Mufti says its Sunni revolution against Maliki

(Zaman Alwasl)- The sweeping advances in Mosul and other Iraqi cities, and the rapid collapse of the Iraqi army this week are not a creature of al-Qaeda splinter group, but it’s a Sunni rebellion against tyrant Nouri al-Maliki, the Sunni Grand Mufti of Iraq told Zaman Alwasl.

The tribes' revolutionaries decide to liberate their territories from the dominance of Iraq’s prime minster, Sheikh Rafea’ al-Rifai says, demanding the Arab states to do their moral and legal duty to protect ‘Ahl al-Sunnah’ (The Sunnis).

Signs emerged that the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) is backed in its campaign by former military officers and other members of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's regime — including a force led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the late leader's former deputy who escaped the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and eluded U.S. and Iraqi forces ever since, AP reported..

Two senior intelligence officials told The Associated Press that an armed group led by al-Douri, the Naqshabandi Army, and other Saddam-era military figures joined the Islamic State in the fight. In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit that was overrun by militants Wednesday, witnesses said fighters raised posters of Saddam and al-Douri. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The involvement of Saddam-era figures raises the potential to escalate the militants' campaign to establish an al-Qaida-like enclave into a wider Sunni uprising. That could only further the momentum toward turning Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divisions in to a geographical fragmentation.

Rifa’I told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper last February that “the Iraqi government, represented by the prime minister and commander of the armed forces, exercises hateful sectarianism which uses excessive force against Iraqi people, and the Sunnis in Iraq have suffered most from the injustice of this government.”

"There are no problems between Iraqis, but there are political gangs who have taken over people’s money, their fortunes and their dignities," al-Rifai said.

Commenting on Maliki’s policy towards the Sunnis in Iraq, Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), told the BBC on Wednesday, “There needs to be a political approach that’s inclusive, one which doesn’t alienate the Sunni community or other major constituencies.

"This has been a considerable failure of the [Maliki] government... that has taken sectarian politics to a new low. Any assistance given to Iraq must be based on an inclusive political situation, without which there can be no military one."