A new batch of Iraqi leaders has sprung up in the latest spasm of violence in Iraq -- people with grassroots support but few or no ties to the US-led occupation.
The new players include an association of Sunni clerics, "the Prince of the Marshes" from southern Iraq and an outspoken Shiite woman dentist.
The rise of these new figures is largely at the expense of politicians with links to the US-led occupation. Their arrival comes as Iraqi leaders are wrangling over who will make up a government due to take power from US administrators on June 30.
On that day, the US-appointed Governing Council -- a 25-member body that has served as Iraq's interim government since July but failed to win the trust of many Iraqis -- will likely be dissolved.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who was asked to come up with a plan for Iraq's transition, has proposed the council be replaced by a caretaker government of "men and women known for their honesty, integrity and competence."
Brahimi did not say who he had in mind. But many Iraqis are starting to see those qualifications in the new rising stars: the Islamic Clerics Committee -- a Sunni group -- and Shiite Governing Council members Abdul-Karim al-Mohammedawi and Salama al-Khufaji.
Vehemently anti-occupation, the Sunni committee was formed a year ago but had been sidelined by the newly powerful Shiite clergy. For months the committee has struggled to give a voice to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, demoralized by its loss of its position of power under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The current crisis has boosted the committee's fortunes and influence.
The Sunni clerics have used their leverage to win the release of some 20 foreign hostages snatched in a wave of abductions that accompanied this month's violence.
Images of the smiling clerics embracing freed hostages have been beamed daily by Arab satellite TV stations widely seen in Iraq, and the releases have won thanks from foreign embassies.
The committee says it has no contacts with the abductors, arguing that its "patriotic" anti-occupation stance persuades kidnappers to heed their appeal for the release of captives not directly involved in military operations.
At the same time, the clerics' group has become the hero of residents of Fallujah. It has organized aid convoys into the city, and its main mosque in Baghdad is a refuge for residents fleeing the city.
The committee has been sharply critical of the Marine siege of Fallujah and the reportedly high death toll among civilians there.
"In the course of a year, we took Iraq by storm and won the trust of everyone," spokesman Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhi said in an interview. "The Americans have sidelined us because we don't accept that their presence here is legitimate. This stance gave us leverage in the street because people began to sense that we speak what is on their minds."
Iraqis dubbed Al-Mohammedawi the "Prince of the Marshes" for leading a resistance movement against Saddam in the southern marsh region of Iraq for 17 years. He was imprisoned for six years under Saddam's regime.
Al-Mohammedawi, 45, bearded and often wearing a traditional Arab robe, has suspended his membership in the Governing Council this month to protest US policies in Iraq. He also has played a key role in efforts to mediate an end to the standoff between US forces and al-Sadr, whose militia has clashed with US and other coalition forces this month.
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