Posted by
Brian Peters on Saturday, June 20, 2009 10:35:13 AM
Riyadh
and Arab Gulf see Shiite hands behind Iraqi Sunni leader's assassination
12
June: The assassination Friday, June 12,
of Hareth al-Obaidi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front bloc, was a major
disaster for the Sunni Arab world and an omen of worse to come as US combat
troops prepare to leave Iraqi cities by the end of the month.
Fears of a systematic liquidation of Sunni leaders in Iraq at the hands
Iraqi and Iranian Shiites figured large in US president Barack Obama's
last conversation with Saudi king Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3.
Al-Obaidi, an imam, who was also deputy head of the Iraqi parliament's
Human Rights Committee, was specifically targeted by a 15-year old gunman,
who burst in the al-Shawaf Mosque in Baghdad's western Yarmouk neighborhood
after Friday prayers. The killer made straight for his target having clearly
been briefed in advance.
When they met in Riyadh, Obama asked King Abdullah to put a stop to young
Saudis crossing into Iraq to fight with Iraqi Sunni insurgents. The king
rebuffed him and accused Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki of joining
with Tehran to conduct a systematic purge of Sunni Arab political and
military power centers in Iraq.
The monarch warned the US president that Tehran would be encouraged to
intensify this campaign by the imminence of US-Iran talks.