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 One of the most influential tribal leaders said he was willing to
work with Shi'ite prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi provided
a new administration respected the rights of the Sunni Muslim
minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Ali Hatem Suleiman left open a possibility that Sunnis would take up
arms against the Islamic State fighters in the same way as he and
others joined U.S. and Shi'ite-led government forces to thwart an al
Qaeda insurgency in Iraq between 2006 and 2009.
Yet amid the signs that political accords were possible in the
fractious nation, some 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority were
"massacred" by Islamic State insurgents, a Yazidi lawmaker and two
Kurdish officials said on Friday.
Abadi faces the daunting task of pacifying Iraq and particularly the
vast desert province of Anbar. It forms much of the border with
Syria, where the Islamist fighters also control swathes of
territory.
Sunni alienation under outgoing Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki
goaded some in Anbar to join an Islamic State revolt that is now
drawing the United States and European allies back into varying
degrees of military involvement in Iraq to contain what they see as
a militant threat that goes well beyond its borders.
The United Nations Security Council blacklisted the Islamic State
spokesman and five other militants on Friday and threatened
sanctions against those backing the insurgents, giving U.N. experts
90 days to report on who those people are.
Iraq has been plunged into its worst violence since the peak of a
sectarian civil war in 2006-2007, with Sunni fighters led by the
Islamic State overrunning large parts of the west and north, forcing
hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives and threatening ethnic
Kurds in their autonomous province.
Winning over Sunnis will be vital to any efforts to contain the
violence marked by daily kidnappings, execution-style killings and
bombings.
Taha Mohammed al-Hamdoon, spokesman for the tribal and clerical
leaders, told Reuters that Sunni representatives in Anbar and other
provinces had drawn up a list of demands.
This would be delivered to Abadi, a member of the same Shi'ite
Islamist party but with a less confrontational reputation than
Maliki, who announced on Thursday he would stand down.
Hamdoon called for the government and Shi'ite militia forces to
suspend hostilities in Anbar to allow space for talks.
"It is not possible for any negotiations to be held under barrel
bombs and indiscriminate bombing," Hamdoon said in a telephone
interview with Reuters. "Let the bombing stop and withdraw and
curtail the (Shi'ite) militias until there is a solution for the
wise men in these areas."
HISTORIC RESPONSIBILITY
Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani, said the handover of power offered a rare opportunity to
resolve the crisis.
He told feuding politicians to live up to their "historic
responsibility" by cooperating with Abadi as he tries to form a new
government and overcome divisions among the Shi'ite, Sunni and
Kurdish communities that deepened under Maliki.
Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian whose authority few Iraqi
politicians would dare openly challenge, also had pointed comments
for the military, which offered no serious resistance when the
Islamic State staged its lightning offensive in June.
 "We stress the necessity that the Iraqi flag is the banner they
hoist over their troops and units, and avoid using any pictures or
other symbols,” Sistani said, in a call for the armed forces to set
aside sectarian differences.
Maliki ended eight years in power that began under U.S. occupation
and endorsed Abadi in a televised late-night speech during which he
stood next to his successor.
The appointment of Abadi has drawn widespread support within Iraq
but also from the United States and regional Shi'ite power Iran -
two countries that have been at odds for decades.
"The regional and international welcome is a rare positive
opportunity ... to solve all (Iraq's) problems, especially political
and security ones,” Sistani said in comments that were relayed by
his spokesman after weekly Friday prayers in the Shi'ite holy city
of Kerbala, south of Baghdad.
ARMS FOR THE KURDS
After its capture of the northern metropolis of Mosul in June, a
swift push by the Islamic State to the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan
alarmed Baghdad and last week drew the first U.S. air strikes on
Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.
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In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers decided that
individual member states were free to send weapons to the Kurds,
provided they had the consent of Iraqi national authorities.
Meeting in emergency session, the EU said it would also look at how
to prevent the Islamic State, which has overrun some oilfields in
Syria and Iraq, benefiting from oil sales. Several European
governments, including France, Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic
and the Netherlands, have said they will send arms to the Kurds or
are considering doing so.
Sweden and Austria were among those that will not, but the 28-nation
bloc avoided a repetition of last year's internal dispute over
arming the Syrian rebels.
Canada is sending two military transport planes to deliver weapons
to the Kurds. "Canada will not stand idly by while the Islamic State
continues its murder of innocent civilians and religious
minorities," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
In Geneva, the United Nations said around 80,000 people had fled to
the relative safety of Dohuk province on the Turkish and Syrian
borders, part of the 1.2 million Iraqis who have been displaced
inside the country this year.
Dan McNorton of the UNHCR refugee agency said their plight was
severe. "People are exhausted, people are very thirsty, these are
searing temperatures," he told a news briefing.
Several thousand remained on the barren tops of the Mount Sinjar
range, where members of the Yazidi religious minority fled the
militants, who consider them "devil worshippers".
On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama said the Islamists' siege
of Mount Sinjar had been broken and he did not expect the United
States to stage an evacuation or continue air drops.
However, McNorton said help was still needed. "That situation
remains very dramatic for those people, regardless of how many
people are on the mountain. It is of critical importance to ensure
that they get the assistance and support that they need from the
international community," he said.
 The killings of Yazidis on Friday took place in a village in the
north, three officials said.
"They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this
afternoon," senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters.
"We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed."
Yazidi parliamentarian Mahama Khalil said he had spoken with
villagers who said the killings took place during a one-hour period.
A resident of a nearby village said an Islamic State fighter from
the same area gave him details of the bloodshed.
"He told me that the Islamic State had spent five days trying to
persuade villagers to convert to Islam and that a long lecture was
delivered about the subject today," said the villager. "He then said
the men were gathered and shot dead. The women and girls were
probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign
fighters are."
U.S. Central Command said U.S. drone aircraft had struck two Islamic
State vehicles near a village where Peshmerga forces reported that
militants were attacking civilians. It was not immediately clear
whether the United States was responding to the same incident cited
by Kurdish officials.
The Islamic State has also seized large parts of Syria as it tries
to build a caliphate across borders drawn by European imperialists a
century ago. The leader of the Shi'ite Lebanese group Hezbollah said
the Sunni militants could widen their threat to include Jordan and
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states, as well as the region's
varied communities.
(Additional reporting by Sarah Young in London, Tom Perry in Beirut,
Adrian Croft in Brussels, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Michelle
Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by
Alastair Macdonald, Philippa Fletcher, Toni Reinhold)
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