OneWorld.net (U.S.)

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 22 (OneWorld) - Iraq's most revered Shi'ite cleric called for an end to sectarian violence Friday, just days after separate announcements declared that, on average, 100 Iraqi civilians died every day in May and June and more than a 1,000 fled their homes each day over the past five months.

"I call on all Iraqis of every sectarian and ethnic community to realize the magnitude of the danger threatening the future of the country and to unite and forsake hatred and violence," Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said in a statement.

"I also exhort all the intellectuals, religious leaders, politicians, tribal chiefs, and others to exert maximum efforts to end the bloody cycle of violence," he added.

According to a United Nations report released Tuesday, about 2,700 civilians were killed in May and 3,100 were killed in June. Two days later, the Iraqi government announced least 162,000 people have fled their homes over the past five months in an effort to escape the sectarian violence that has swept the country.

Many observers doubt that the U.S. military can do much to improve the situation.

"This was in the cards from the get go," the Center for Defense Information's (CDI) Winslow Wheeler told OneWorld.

Wheeler, who spent 30 years as a national security staffer on Capitol Hill before joining CDI, says however the Bush Administration acts the United States will be accused of taking sides.

"The Shia get angry when we try to include the Sunnis in the government," he said. "The Sunnis get angry when we allow the Shia to take over the country. At almost every turn the U.S. government has exacerbated previously existing sectarian tensions."

Iraqi police officers are caught in the middle, he said, accused by some of being collaborators, by others as simply being ineffective.

On Monday, after a truck bomb killed at least 59 day-laborers in the Shi'ite holy city of Kufa, protesters attacked the Iraqi police.

After the bomb explosion, police at the scene were pelted with rocks by angry crowds, many of whom demanded that militias loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take over security in Kufa, the Reuters news agency reported.

Protesters gathered around the blackened mangle of vehicles, bloodstained clothes scattered amid the debris. "You are traitors!" some chanted at the police. "You are not doing your job!" and "American agents!" others exclaimed.

Ali, an Iraqi Special Forces officer in charge of investigating the car bombing in Kufa, told OneWorld he sympathized with the protesters.

"The police don't have any information about anything," he said. "They're just kids. They don't really check anything at checkpoints. They just ask people where they are from and let them go without checking anything."

The U.S. military and Iraqi government are increasing the numbers of police officers but not their effectiveness, Ali said.

"Until recently, you didn't need any kind of education to join the police. Now, they changed it so you have to have graduated from middle school to apply to be a police officer," he noted.

Gatherings of poor laborers in crowded markets have become a favorite target of fighters who intend to inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties. Baghdad journalist Mo'ayyad al-Hamdani said despite the risk the poor in Iraq still must work in order to eat.

"Why do these workers stand in front of a truck and never suspect anything?" he asked rhetorically. "These workers may have been waiting in the street for more than a week to find work for just one day. So even the work that he's going to find--it's not going to cover him for one or two weeks until his next day of work."

Those with means, however, are increasingly trying to flee the country. Over the last three years, more than a million Iraqis have fled to Jordan and Syria.

Boston University professor Shakir Mustafa grew up in Iraq and earned his Ph.D. at Baghdad University. Now he's trying to get his family out.

"My family couldn't care less about sect," Mustafa told OneWorld. "My family are Shi'ites, and they are not saying they hate Sunnis. They are just saying they want to get out because life has become impossible."

But Mustafa says as more Iraqis try to flee, neighboring countries have become less welcoming.

"It's becoming increasingly difficult and increasingly expensive to go to Jordan or Syria, which is usually where they are going. There are much stricter visa regulations. My brother is trying to figure out how to leave, but he will only be able to get a visa for one week in Jordan or Syria. What will he do afterwards? The neighbors are not in a position to take so many refugees."