IRAQ: AL MALIKI, AMONGST MANY, UPSET AT SAUDI SUPPORT OF IRAQI SUNNIS

Iraqi Shias angry at Saudi remark on Sunnis

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s Shiite leaders on Thursday said they were angered by a Saudi Arabian official saying that Riyadh would support the violence-wracked country’s Sunni Arabs in the event of a US pullout.

Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki said: “We will not countenance any language interfering in Iraq on the pretext of defending sects.”

Saudi security expert Nawaf Obaid wrote in Wednesday’s Washington Post that withdrawal of US forces could see Saudi Arabia giving Iraq’s Sunnis funds, arms and supplies to counter Teheran’s alleged support for Iraqi Shiite militias.

Obaid is managing director of the Riyadh-based Saudi National Security Assessment Project and also the private security and energy adviser to the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Turki Al Faisal.

If the United States leaves, Obaid wrote, “one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis”.

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1) Iraqi Shias angry at Saudi remark on Sunnis