ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – As Iraqi forces launched a reportedly deadly crackdown on a months-long protest in the city of Ramadi in the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, Sunni MPs reacted by announcing mass resignations as other leaders called on protesters to resist and soldiers to disobey.
"All members of parliament who are in the (Sunni) Mutahidun list announce their resignations,” Osama al-Nujaifi, the parliament speaker and leader of the Sunni list in the legislature, told reporters after a meeting in Baghdad with the head of the National Dialogue Front, Saleh al-Mutlaq.
Ali Mousawi, media advisor for Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, announced the operation against the protesters. “The ministry of interior, in coordination with the tribes, dismantled the protesters’ camp in Ramadi."
Iraq’s Mada press reported that the Iraqi army had began operations against the protesters, attacking the eastern part of Fallujah with tanks and artillery shells. It reported heavy clashes between armed men and the Iraqi security forces. The AFP news agency reported at least one person killed.
Meanwhile, Sunni scholars demanded that politicians, MPs, clerics and the country’s Shiite leadership take a position against the crackdown, warning they held Maliki’s government responsible for the outcome.
"We hold the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responsible for what happens in Anbar between the people of the same nation,” Sunni scholars said in a joint statement. “We prohibit anyone from participating in military operations against the citizens."
The scholars also demanded that all Sunnis involved in the political process withdraw from the so-called Document of Honor, because “Maliki has proved that he does not respect treaties or covenants."
The Document of Honor was signed in September by most of the Iraqi political forces, regardless of sect or ethnicity. It was aimed at improving the security situation in the country and achieving social peace among Iraq's multi-ethnic and sectarian components.
Abdul Malek al-Saadi, a prominent Sunni Islamic leader and former protest organizer in Fallujah who is currently in Erbil, called on all Sunnis to withdraw from the government.
"I ask the Sunni politicians to immediately withdraw from their government posts, and the people of Fallujah to go on the streets to block the advance of the Iraqi army,” he said.
Like other Sunni scholars Saadi also demanded that Shiite leaders prevent their sons from taking part in the military operations against the protesters.
"We call for a (Sunni) meeting in order to make decisions to determine the fate of this component and the politicians must re-evaluate their political participation and review it," the Sunni scholars said in their statement.
They called on tribal chiefs and notables in Anbar to prevent their children from taking part in the crackdown.
Last week, Maliki vowed to take concrete actions against protesters camped out in tents in Ramadi since November last year. He claimed that al-Qaeda elements had infiltrated the Anbar protests and warned that an operation to clear the protest site was imminent.
His warning for protesters to leave the site ahead of a crackdown followed an ambush on an Iraqi army convoy that killed more than 10 senior officers.
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