Iraq’s Top Shi’it Cleric Tells Followers To Fight Militants! (can you imagine)

raq’s most senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric on Friday urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi’ite Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki.

The call is widely seen as an escalation to a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country.
In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi’ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Fighters under the black flag of ISIL are sweeping south towards the capital Baghdad in a campaign to recreate a mediaeval caliphate carved out of fragmenting Iraq and Syria that has turned into a widespread rebellion against Maliki.
“People who are capable of carrying arms and fighting the terrorists in defence of their country … should volunteer to join the security forces to achieve this sacred goal,” Sheikh Abdulmehdi al-Karbalai said while delivering Sistani’s message.
Those killed fighting ISIL militants would be martyrs, he said, as the faithful chanted in acknowledgement.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday threatened military strikes against ISIL, highlighting the gravity of the group’s threat to redraw borders in an oil-rich region which is sending shockwaves through the Middle East.
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Amidst the spreading chaos, Iraqi Kurdish forces have seized control of Kirkuk, an oil hub just outside their autonomous enclave that they have long seen as their historical capital, three days after ISIL fighters captured the major city of Mosul.
There are now concerns that sectarian and tribal conflict might dismember Iraq into Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish entities.
Reflecting fears that ISIL’s insurgency could mushroom into civil war and disrupt oil exports from a major OPEC member state, brent crude edged further above $113 a barrel on Friday, up about $4 since the start of the week.
Obama said military action alone was no panacea against ISIL and alluded to long-standing Western complaints that Maliki has done little to heal sectarian rifts that have left many of Iraq’s minority Sunnis, cut out of power since Saddam Hussein’s demise, aggrieved and vengeful – a mood exploited by ISIL.
“Prime Minister Maliki and all of Iraqi leaders need to do more to put sectarian differences aside,” U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, said at a news conference in London on Friday.
He said US was deeply concerned.
The ISIL advance has been joined by former Baathist officers who were loyal to Saddam as well as disaffected armed groups and tribes who want to oust Maliki.
Cities and towns that have fallen to the militants so far have been Sunni and the gains have largely been uncontested.
The UN Security Council has met behind closed doors to discuss the crisis and expressed its unanimous support to the government of Iraq.