Al-Qaida assails Shiite majority in new recording

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq railed against leaders and paramilitary forces affiliated with Shiite Muslims and urged his fellow Sunnis to confront the rival Islamic sect, according to statements from a new recording that emerged Friday.

"The Badr Brigades and Mahdi Army are storming the houses of Sunnis under the pretext of searching for the mujahedeen," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said. "And even if they didn't find any, they kill men and arrest women, put them in prison and rape them and steal everything from the houses of the Sunnis."

In another section of the four-hour recording, posted on the Internet, al-Zarqawi called on Sunnis to "confront the poisonous Shiite snakes who are afflicting you," according to an Associated Press translation.

Al-Zarqawi called Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent religious authority, an "atheist" and lambasted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is also a Shiite, for failing to follow through with his stated desire to see Israel destroyed.

Responding to the recording during a news conference with a U.S. congressional delegation, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described al-Zarqawi's thinking as the result of "a fossilized mentality that has strayed from true religion."

Al-Zarqawi is believed to have masterminded or facilitated dozens of attacks in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. His rebellion has been aimed at the Iraqi government, now led by majority Shiites, as well as against U.S. forces.

The recording emerged amid a surge in violent attacks in Iraq. At least 100 Iraqis were reported killed since Sunday. The Iraqi Health Ministry reported Friday that 657 civilians were killed between April 30 and May 21.

On Friday, a bomb killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded four others in a Baghdad shopping district.

Gunmen in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk assassinated an Iraqi army general and one of his bodyguards.

U.S. military sources reported that a bomb killed a woman Thursday in the northern city of Tikrit. Two Iraqi men and two American soldiers were wounded in the attack.

The continuing violence and sectarian conflict were a common theme in Friday mosque sermons throughout Iraq. Clerics of both major Muslim sects decried the killings sweeping the country and blamed U.S. forces for exacerbating sectarian tensions.

"Occupation forces are the root of terrorism," said Sheik Ali Najafi, a Shiite, speaking in the holy city of Najaf. "They themselves support terrorism and implant and set the terrorists free!"