Fatwa to 'end insurgency' if US sets date to leave Iraq

FT.com: An official in Iraq's most influential Sunni religious organisation said yesterday it would issue a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for an end to the insurgency if Iraq's new government set a date for the withdrawal of US troops.

"If the Iraqi government sets out a position in agreement with all political trends, and it is approved by the United Nations that the US forces withdraw, then I am sure that the Islamic and nationalist resistance will end" said Sheikh Amer al-Haity, who runs the west Baghdad office of the Association of Muslim Scholars.

"If it does not end, the association will take a stand to a stop to the resistance and issue religious rulings that it not continue, so that there be no more killing of the sons of Iraq," he said.
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It is unlikely that this vision for a peace in Iraq features prominently in President Bush's current dreamscape.