Sunni tribal chief thrown from rooftop

BAGHDAD: A 75-year-old chief from Iraq's powerful Tamin tribe was thrown to his death from the top of a Baghdad building after gunmen kidnapped him from a funeral, a relative said on Wednesday.

Sheikh Hamed Mohammed Suhail, a Sunni leader in a mixed Sunni and Shiite tribe, was seized from the funeral in Agarguff area near Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad two days ago.

"He was dragged from the funeral and taken to Shuala area in Baghdad and then thrown from the top of a building," his nephew, tribal leader Sheikh Ali Suhail al-Tamimi, told media, blaming Shiite militants.

Shuala is a Shiite neighbourhood in western Baghdad.

Although Mohammed Suhail is a Sunni, nearly two thirds of his tribe is Shiite and he was known as a moderate who was working to reconcile Baghdad's warring communities, his nephew said.

"We accuse the Mahdi Army of killing him in this ugly way," Suhail said, pointing the finger at radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, which has been accused of killing Sunni Arabs in Iraq's sectarian conflict.

Suhail said his uncle died in a Shuala hospital.

"We demand that Mahdi army operating in the Agarguff area be investigated. These militias want nothing but sectarian war," Suhail charged.

Tamim is a leading tribe in the Arab world with clans in countries like Syria and Jordan as well as Iraq.    str-jds/dc/ksh    AFP 030844  JAN 07