A leading Iraqi Shiite cleric on Friday demanded that the US sack its envoy and accused him of siding with fellow Sunni Muslims in the divided country's growing sectarian conflict.
The call by Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi came as political leaders, urged on by the US ambassador, held their latest round of negotiations to form a government of national unity after elections in December and head off sectarian civil war.
Yacoubi said in a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers that Washington had underestimated the conflict between Shiites and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority.
"They are either misled by reports which lack objectivity and credibility submitted to the US by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq ... or they are denying this fact," Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement.
"It [the US] should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures," the statement said.
After the imam of Baghdad's Rahman mosque read that line, worshippers chanted "Allahu Akbar" -- God is great.
Yacoubi's call for Zalmay Khalilzad's ouster is the latest sign of growing divisions between the ruling Shiites and Washington and comes days after an Iraqi-US raid on a mosque compound killed at least 16 Shiites and outraged many Iraqis.
Yacoubi is the spiritual guide for the Fadhila party, one of the smaller but still influential components of the dominant Islamist Alliance bloc. He is not part of the senior clerical council around Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf.
Nonetheless, Shiite politicians said his comments reflected widespread disenchantment among them with Khalilzad.
"It's a very good statement," one senior official in the Alliance, not from Fadhila, said of Yacoubi's sermon.
Khalilzad has been criticized by Shiite leaders who say they resent his championing of efforts to tempt Sunnis away from armed revolt into a coalition government.
The US embassy declined to comment on the criticisms.
Meanwhile, calls emerged yesterday within the Shiite alliance for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step aside as the bloc's nominee for another term while pressure mounted from Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians for the Shiites to pick another candidate.
One prominent Shiite politician, former national security adviser Qassim Dawoud, openly called for al-Jaafari to withdraw his name from the list.
Shiite officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said others within the Shiite alliance were open to replacing al-Jaafari. But they denied media reports that the Shiite alliance had already asked al-Jaafari to step aside.
"There is a current [within the Shiite alliance] that is calling on the prime minister to withdraw his nomination because the political process has reached a deadlock," Dawoud said. "I personally asked that he withdraw his nomination."
Opposition to al-Jaafari, a former physician who spent years in exile in Iran and Britain, has bogged down talks among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians over formation of a new government.
Sunni and Kurdish politicians have urged the Shiites to replace al-Jaafari, claiming his government had been ineffective in curbing tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Al-Jaafari won the nomination by one vote in a caucus of Shiite lawmakers last month.
Al-Jaafari edged out Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi because of support from radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The prospect of a prime minister politically beholden to the vehemently anti-US al-Sadr has alarmed both Iraqi and US officials.
Under the constitution, the nominee of the biggest bloc in parliament gets first crack at the prime ministership, subject to parliamentary approval. The Shiites control 130 seats in the 275-member parliament.
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