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Al-Qaida leader's tape rails against Shiites

CAIRO - The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq railed against Shiites in a four-hour audiotape harangue posted on the Internet on Friday, saying that militias are raping women and killing Sunnis and that the community must fight back.

The tape by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared aimed at sabotaging the Iraqi government's efforts to name a unity government but was also intended to inflame rising Shiite-Sunni tensions across the Arab world.

"There's a civil war going on in Iraq, but it will not become truly fierce until it's exported outside Iraq. This tape is trying to do just that," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi political commentator.

The No. 2 man in al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, chastised Zarqawi in September for attacking Shiites, said Bruce Hoffman, a RAND Corp. terrorism expert.

"Obviously, he (Zarqawi) is thumbing his nose at the al-Qaida central leadership," Hoffman said. "That's significant."

A written statement said the audiotape was made two months ago. The CIA said Friday that technical analysis of the tape confirmed it was Zarqawi's voice.

Zarqawi's Sunni insurgent followers have carried out some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Iraq's conflict and have frequently targeted Shiite civilians and mosques in an attempt to spark civil war. In his statements, the militant often vilifies Shiites as infidels.

But the tape posted Friday was an unprecedented screed that chronicled what Zarqawi said was a Shiite campaign throughout history to destroy Islam and help foreign invaders of Muslim lands.

"Sunnis, wake up, pay attention and prepare to confront the poisons of the Shiite snakes," Zarqawi said. "Forget about those advocating the end of sectariansim and calling for national unity."

He pointed to two Shiite militias with links to parties in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, accused by Sunnis in Iraq of running death squads in a recent wave of sectarian violence.

"They kill men and arrest women, put them in prison and rape them and steal everything from the houses of the Sunnis," he said.

[Last modified June 3, 2006, 06:37:45]