5 American soldiers reported dead in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Iraq's most senior Sunni politician issued a desperate appeal Sunday for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran. The U.S. military reported five American soldiers were killed, apparently lured into an al-Qaida trap.

Adnan al-Dulaimi said "Persians" and "Safawis," Sunni terms for Iranian Shiites, were on the brink of total control in Baghdad and soon would threaten Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the Mideast.

"It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands," al-Dulaimi wrote in an impassioned e-mail to The Associated Press.

Sunni Arab regimes throughout the Middle East fear the growing influence of Iran's Shiite theocracy with radical groups like Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Syrian regime. Raising the specter of Iranian power reaching the Arab doorstep, unlikely in the near-term, betrayed al-Dulaimi's desperation.

But his fears of a Shiite takeover of Baghdad were not as farfetched. Mahdi Army militiamen have cleansed entire neighborhoods of Sunni residents and seized Sunni mosques. Day by day, hundreds have been killed and thousands have fled their homes, seeking safety in the shrinking number of majority Sunni districts.

The fighters, nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are believed to operate as death squads blamed for much of the country's sectarian slaughter.

Sunni extremists, many with al-Qaida links, are responsible too, mainly through massive bombings, often carried out by suicide attackers.

Like al-Dulaimi, the United States accuses Iran of providing the Shiite militia with sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs, other weapons and training. Iran denies the allegations.

Al-Dulaimi resorted to the extremely harsh language a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, returned from his second visit to Tehran since taking power 14 months ago.

The outburst reflected growing anger in the Sunni establishment over perceptions of al-Maliki as a deeply biased sectarian leader with links to Iran.

"Arabs, your brothers in the land of the two rivers and in Baghdad in particular are exposed to an unprecedented genocide campaign by the militias and death squads that are directed, armed and supported by Iran," al-Dulaimi said.