Sunni protests flare after Iraqi minister's staff held
Sunni leaders in Iraq accused Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of a crackdown on Friday after troops detained a Sunni minister's bodyguards, setting off protests in one province and threatening to reignite a political crisis.
The incident came hours after President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who has mediated among Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish factions, left for Germany after suffering a stroke that may end his steadying influence over politics.
Talabani's absence and political tension has renewed pressure on Iraq's fragile power-sharing government, which is split among sects and ethnic Kurds and has stumbled from crisis to crisis since U.S. soldiers withdrew in December 2011.
Maliki has often managed to play his rivals off against one another and strengthen his alliances in the complex political landscape before provincial elections next year and a parliamentary vote in 2014.
Several thousand demonstrators took to the streets in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar after prayers, blocking a highway in Falluja to demand Maliki's resignation and waving banners reading: "Resistance is still in our veins".
Sunni leaders warned they might withdraw from government and called for a vote of no confidence in Maliki, whom they accuse of abusing his power to sideline election rivals.
FULL STORY:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/ ... FK20121221
