Politicians say the Sunni clerics' group is now participating at least indirectly in talks on the formation of what Shiites and Kurds promise will be a national unity government. But some Sunni leaders have said they will fully join the political process only after the United States announces when it will pull out its troops.
The clerics' call Friday not just to spare Iraqi forces but to join them "seems to be a new attitude," Nadhmi said.
An Iraqi youth looks toward a treasured minaret in the northern city of Samarra that was damaged in an explosion. It was unclear what caused the blast, but witnesses said someone had planted a bomb inside.
(Hameed Rasheed -- AP)
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"They want the departure of occupying armies -- well, we all want that," said Kadim, the Interior Ministry spokesman. Sunnis opposed to the U.S. presence, he added, increasingly realize "it doesn't help a bit to be a terrorist. Really, it's hurting Iraqis."
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Sistani's office issued a fatwa Friday declaring that "cooperation with the forces of order is a religious duty," the Agence France-Presse news agency reported. The statement left vague what Sistani considered "the forces of order."
The explosion at Samarra's historic mosque came a day after clashes in the city. On Friday morning, a man entered the mosque with a satchel and came running out minutes later, according to a witness, Hareth Ahmed Mohammed.
Police said the subsequent explosion blew a large chunk out of the 170-foot-tall minaret. People in the street said they could see only small holes.
Built in 852 at the height of the Abbassid Empire, the mosque was one of the few sites to survive repeated Mongol attacks beginning in the 13th century that razed Baghdad and other cities.
American snipers at times have taken up positions in the minaret. Hostages held by the insurgent group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi have described watching his guerrillas hack off the heads of captives on the mosque's roof.
"I saw the news . . . and I was about to lose my mind," Ahmed Jasim, owner of a Samarra snack shop, said Friday after the bombing. "I can't imagine Samarra without the minaret."
In the northern city of Kirkuk on Friday, a bomb placed on a university sidewalk killed one person and wounded three, police said.
Special correspondents Bassam Sebti in Baghdad and Salih Saif Aldeen in Samarra contributed to this report.
