BAGHDAD, Feb 19, 2006 - A hardline Sunni Muslim clerics group is asking for outside help after renewing accusations that Iraq's Shiite-dominated government is operating death squads to kill Sunni civilians.
The clerics are calling on Muslim and Arab countries to support Iraq's Sunni community.

A representative of the Association of Muslim Scholars says more than 300 Sunni Arabs have been assassinated in Baghdad over the past four months. The figure can't be independently confirmed.

He calls it "a dangerous human crisis" and says its impact will cross Iraq's borders "if no one puts a stop to it."

The representative says the killings are occurring as though government security forces and militias "are racing against time to claim as much as they can" from rivals who oppose them.

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