ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Sunni MPs in the Iraqi parliament on Tuesday called for the disarming of Shiite militias, whom they blame for sectarian attacks against Sunnis in the town of Muqdadiya. The attacks were mounted after an Islamic State (ISIS) attack targeted Shiite militiamen there last week in a bomb attack that killed 23. The MPs called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to disarm the Shiite militias in Diyala amid growing fears of rising sectarian violence. The MPs said in a statement that their Sunni Iraqi Forces Coalition would ”boycott the next two sessions of parliament and government in condemnation of what is happening in Muqdadiya." "We demand the dissolution and disarmament of the (Shiite) militias," added the statement, read out in parliament by Sunni MP Ahmed Masari. MPs claim that the recent violence has seen 40 Sunnis killed in the last week in Muqdadiya and nine of their mosques attacked with firebombs. An aide to Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the predominant Shiite militia in Diyala, the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, said the number of casualties had been exaggerated. "Yes, there are people killed but the number is exaggerated," he told Reuters, while attributingt the violence to mobs of people who seek to destabilize Diyala by instigating sectarian tensions. Amiri publicly expressed his regret over the violence and offered to help rebuild the damaged Sunni mosques. Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, similarly discouraged sectarian tensions last week and called upon the Iraqi Security Forces to prevent any attacks in that area.
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