BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (AFP) - Iraq's official Sunni Muslim political party has threatened to quit the US-backed government unless a full-scale military assault on the rebel-held city of Fallujah is halted, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
"We demand that the government suspends the offensive against Fallujah and returns to the negotiating table to find a peaceful solution to this crisis rather than restorting to the military option," said Iyad Samarrai, the spokesman for the Islamic Party.
Its Secretary General Mohson Abdel Hamid is due to meet Prime Minister Iyad Allawi later Tuesday to discuss the offensive launched on Monday against the Sunni Muslim bastion.
"From the result of this meeting, we will decide whether to stay in the government or withdraw," Samarrai said.
The influential Sunni religious Committee of Muslim Scholars on Monday accused the interim govermnent of being at the service of the occupation.
"The government brushes aside the rights of the Iraqi population and lends itself to the sevice of the occupation," said Sheikh Mohammad Bachar al-Faydi, a spokesman for the committee.
"What is going on is the extermination of a population by this operation, which is not just targeting the resistance but also women and children who preferred to stay at home because they have nowhere else to go," he added.
Up to 20,000 US and Iraqi forces launched a major offensive on Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on Monday evening to wrest it from rebel hands as the government battles to restore order in the country ahead of elections promised by January.
11/09/2004 04:49 GMT - AFP