BAGHDAD -- The call to arms came in the former Mother of All Battles mosque -- built by former President Saddam Hussein with minarets that look like Kalashnikov assault rifles.
In a sign of the changing times, the Sunni cleric didn't exhort his followers to fight. He said they, instead, should help Iraq's government secure peace.
Reading an edict during Friday prayers, Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, said it is time for Iraqis to join the fledgling police and army.
For months, the group had warned minority Sunnis, who were dominant under Saddam, against cooperating with the security forces. But it now seems to acknowledge that Iraq's interim government slowing is retaking control.