IRAQ: ISLAMIC STATE SET UP WITHIN IRAQ BY SHAIKH ABU OMAR AL BAGHDADI

Militants set up 'Islamic Iraqi state' amid violence


Baghdad: An Iraqi militant group that includes Al Qaida in Iraq announced in a video tape yesterday that it has established an Islamic Iraqi state.

In footage screened by the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera, a spokesman for the council called on Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arab former elite to "pledge allegiance to the emir of the believers, Shaikh Abu Omar Al Baghdadi," a previously unknown nom de guerre.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council - an umbrella organisation of insurgent groups in Iraq - said the new state was made up of six provinces that have large Sunni populations.

The spokesman said the state would include parts of the mainly Shiite provinces of Babil and Wasit south of Baghdad along with the mixed capital and province of Diyala, and the key northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

The announcement came as sectarian violence continued to rock the country. Shouting for revenge after the slaying of 14 Shite workers, militias killed at least 31 people in a town north of Baghdad, police, doctors and local residents said. In four car bomb attacks in Kirkuk 10 people were killed.

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