Iraq clerics urge end to violence

Scores die in daily insurgency and sectarian attacks

Religious leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide have called for a halt to violence in the country.

During a gathering in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, they signed a document drawing on Islamic texts which say shedding Muslim blood is forbidden.

It urges the preservation of Iraq's unity, the protection of holy sites and the release of "innocent detainees".

Scores of Iraqis are killed on a daily basis in tit-for-tat violence between the Shia and Sunni Muslim communities.

The meeting was held by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

The 10-point text forbids kidnappings, incitement of hatred, attacks on religious sites and the forcing of members of the other sect from their homes.

It also called for the release from detention of Iraqis not charged with specific crimes.

The most important point in it is that the shedding of Sunni and Shia blood is forbidden, forbidden, forbidden Sheikh Ahmad Abd al-Ghafour al-Samerrai

The conference organisers hope that once the document is adopted, it will be put on display in mosques throughout Iraq and published in the Iraqi media.

Representatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Iraq's largest Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, backed the document, as did the former leader of Iraq's largest Sunni party, the Associated Press reported.

A spokesman told the news agency the text had also been approved by the country's top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the radical Shia leader Moqtada Sadr, whose Mehdi army militia has been widely blamed for involvement in sectarian attacks.

Sheikh Ahmad Abd al-Ghafour al-Samerrai, the head of the Sunni Waqf Department in Iraq, told the BBC Arabic service that the Mecca conference was a culmination of previous meetings.

"The most important point in it is that the shedding of Sunni and Shia blood is forbidden, forbidden, forbidden," he said.

BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says the plan would be a good one if it worked, but similar appeals by Sunni and Shia clerics have fallen on deaf ears in the past.