Yesterday, thousands of Shia Muslims marched in protest through Baghdad, accusing the Americans of hindering the war against insurgents in their attempt to appease the Sunni community.
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The main Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), raised the spectre of an outright descent into civil war, warning that the continuing sectarian attacks by Sunnis would force Shia retaliation.
The Americans are blamed for hampering the counter-insurgency - an accusation which began after the US authorities criticised abuse by Shia-controlled government forces and freed dozens of prisoners who had been mistreated in an Interior Ministry bunker.
The Shia demonstrators chanted slogans against the US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Sunni leaders such as Adnan al-Dulaimi and Saleh al-Mutlaq, saying, "No no to Zalmay. No, no to terrorism" and "Yes, yes to the Interior Ministry".
Several Shia clerics used the Friday prayers to call for action. At the Khadimiyah mosque in Baghdad, Imam Hazim Araji, holding a Kalashnikov rifle aloft, said in his address to 5,000 worshippers: "How long can we remain silent? Terrorists are pampered in Iraq."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article336989.ece
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