Word: dari
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...Qaeda has lost its most powerful friend in Iraq: Harith al-Dari, the country's most influential Sunni cleric and a prominent anti-American figure, has rejected al-Qaeda's vision of an Islamic state, telling TIME that Iraqis "will not accept such a system." In a sharp departure from his long-standing view of the terror group, al-Dari now says al-Qaeda has "gone too far." He also repudiates recent statements on Iraq by Osama bin Laden's deputy, saying: "Ayman al-Zawahiri doesn't represent Iraqis...
...Dari's change of heart on al-Qaeda is not necessarily good news for the Bush Administration. The Sunni cleric remains an implacable foe of the U.S. occupation, and of the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He is dismissive of the "surge" in Baghdad, insisting that no solution to Iraq's problems is possible while American troops remain - and rejects as "insincere and meaningless" al-Maliki's efforts to reach out to the Sunnis...
...leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the largest Sunni clerical body, al-Dari is the sect's most prominent figure in Iraq. Many U.S. military commanders and Iraqi government officials believe he is the spiritual head of the insurgency, and accuse his son Muthanna of personally commanding a deadly terror group known as the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution (named after an anti-British uprising led by Harith al-Dari's grandfather). Both al-Daris deny direct connection with the Brigades, but say Sunni insurgent groups are part of a legitimate, nationalist resistance to occupation. He has given...
...past, Harith al-Dari and other AMS figures have given at least tacit backing - and occasionally open support - to al-Qaeda, believing the terror group would help the Sunni insurgency achieve its goal of driving American forces from Iraq. But in recent months, many Sunni leaders have grown uncomfortable with al-Qaeda's indiscriminate bombing campaign, which targets Iraqi civilians more often than U.S. forces. Now, al-Dari says, insurgent groups "have changed their view of Al-Qaeda...
...Dari says the "harsh actions" - suicide bombings and attacks on civilian targets - of al-Qaeda's foreign fighters in Iraq are "unacceptable." He also accuses the group of trying to take over sole command of the fight against the Americans, pushing aside home-grown insurgent groups. But there may also be a personal reason for al-Dari's change of heart: his nephew, also known as Harith and a top commander of the Brigades, was murdered by al-Qaeda in March...