Sunnis and Shiites join to fight al-Zarqawi's terrorists

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said.

Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of al-Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Al-Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.

The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of al-Zarqawi that ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city of more than 200,000 in the area called the Sunni Triangle. The order to leave within 48 hours came in retaliation for alleged expulsions by Shiite militias of Sunnis living in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq.

"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect — whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds."

Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders and armed followers of al-Zarqawi have clashed before in the far west, and Sunnis and Shiites in western cities have sympathized with one another over what they say are attempts by foreign fighters to spark open sectarian conflict there.