Sadr urges end to killings

Najaf: Just one day after the deadliest attack in Iraq since the US invasion killed at least 215 people in Baghdad, radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr appealed to Iraq's most prominent Sunni religious leader to tell Sunni's to stop killing Shiites.

Sadr's group also threatened to pull out of Iraq's national unity government if Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki meets with US President George W. Bush in Jordan on November 29.

“We will withdraw from the government and parliament if the prime minister meets Bush in Jordan,'' a statement from the group said, adding that it would also withdraw if the security situation did not improve.

Meanwhile, Sadr made the call to Harith Al Dari to issue the fatwa during a Friday sermon in Kufa – just outside the holy city of Najaf.

Sadr called on Dari to issue fatwas to fellow Sunnis forbidding the killing of Shiites or membership of Al Qaida.

"He has to release a fatwa prohibiting the killing of Shiites so as to preserve Muslim blood and must prohibit membership of Al Qaida or any other organisation that has made [Shiites] their enemies," he told chanting supporters.

He also said that Dari should order Sunnis to support the rebuilding of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, whose destruction in February, blamed on Al Qaida, sparked a vicious cycle of sectarian revenge killings.

"If Harith al-Dari issues these fatwas I will oppose his arrest warrant," Sadr said.

The toll in Thursday's car bomb blasts in Sadr City rose to at least 215 on Friday, when two more bombs killed at least 22 people in Tal Afar.

Police said that the bombings involved explosives hidden in a parked car and in a suicide belt worn by a pedestrian that detonated simultaneously outside a car dealership.