In west Baghdad's Omar al-Khattab mosque, a Sunni preacher assails his Shia compatriots for failing to come to the aid of the besieged city of Falluja.

“Those of the black turbans” Iraq's Shia clergy “are but traitors and agents of America. It is they who have provoked the Amer-icans to attack the Sunni, whom they call extremists and terrorists,” Sheikh Ahmed al-Kubaisi told his congregation last Friday.