BAGHDAD - A powerful Baghdad Sunni cleric on Friday urged the government to expel the Vatican ambassador over remarks of Pope Benedict XVI implicitly linking Islam to violence.
"Do not ignore these remarks and expel the ambassador of the Vatican," Mahmud al-Issawi of the revered Sunni mosque Abdel Qader al-Gilani said during his Friday sermon.
"I am surprised by the statement and consider it an attack on Muslims."
Moderate Sunni cleric Mohammed Abdel Rahman Jarallah from the northern city of Mosul said the pope's comment was a "joke."
"Every time Islam progresses and expands, there is some attack on it," he said. "It is a like a joke every now and then. Islam is a religion of tolerance and it shows that the pope has no knowledge of Islam."
Shiite imam Sheikh Hazim al-Araji from the movement of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also denounced the pope's remarks from Baghdad's Sadr City, the bastion of Sadr followers.
"I denounce this statement and consider it an attack on the Prophet (Mohammed)," he said
The pope has triggered outrage across the Muslim world after he implicitly criticised connections between Islam and violence, particularly with regard to jihad, or "holy war".
09/15/2006 12:01 GMT