BAGHDAD, 13 August 2007 — Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki yesterday called on senior leaders in Iraq’s bitterly divided communities to hold crisis talks this week even as an influential Sunni leader issued an impassioned appeal for help from Arab countries against what he called Iranian-supported death squads and militias.

“I have invited major political leaders to a meeting to discuss substantial matters,” Maliki said in a televised speech. “Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow could be the first meeting for these leaders to discuss the political program and important strategic problems,” the Shiite premier said.

Seventeen ministerial posts in his government are empty or filled by members boycotting Cabinet meetings amid protests by many parties at Maliki’s faltering program of national reconciliation.

In the latest blow to the government’s reconciliation efforts, Adnan Al-Dulaimi, the leader of the largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, the Iraqi Accordance Front, warned that Baghdad was in danger of falling into the hands of the “Persians” and “Safawis,” using terms referring to Iran.

“Arabs, your brothers in the land of the two rivers and in Baghdad in particular are exposed to an unprecedented genocide campaign by the militias and death squads that are directed, armed and supported by Iran,” Dulaimi said in a statement.

Dulaimi’s words reflected growing frustration among Sunnis with Maliki’s government, which is widely accused of having a Shiite bias and has failed to stop the execution-style killings believed carried out mainly by Shiite-led death squads.

Maliki last week made his second trip to Iran since taking office in what many critics claimed was proof of Iran’s influence over his government.

In his speech yesterday, the prime minister defended the trip and said he would continue traveling to other countries to seek help in stemming the violence.

Maliki said he planned to discuss at the crisis talks demands for political reform made by various factions, including the Accordance Front, which has withdrawn its ministers from Cabinet meetings. “We will see if these demands are legitimate or not and we will apologize if it is not possible to implement them,” he said.

But Dulaimi’s remarks made no mention of reconciliation efforts. He said urgent action was needed against what he described as an organized campaign by Shiite militias to drive Sunnis from the capital. “Areas such as Azamiyah, Sulaikh, Fadhil, Dora, Adil, Jami’a, Ghazaliyah, Amiriyah and Yarmouk are attacked daily by Iranian-made mortars that were given to militias to eradicate the Sunnis,” the statement said, referring to neighborhoods in Baghdad.

He also made the point during a press conference at his house in Adil, a Sunni-dominated neighborhood in western Baghdad.

“I call on all Arabs, Muslims, presidents and kings and people to intervene and urge the Iraqi government to get out from this crisis and I call on them to stand beside Iraqis against violence and the oppression that come to us from Iran and its agents,” Dulaimi said.

The political developments came as the US military said five American soldiers were killed south of Baghdad, including four in a single roadside bombing. The blast that killed the four soldiers and wounded four others occurred Saturday during combat operations south of the capital, the military said. Another soldier was killed the same day by small-arms fire during a foot patrol southeast of Baghdad.

The deaths raised to at least 3,690 the number of US troops killed since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

As the going got tough for the US-led coalition forces, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said that keeping soldiers in Iraq was a “hard sell” with a public which is losing patience with the slow pace of progress.

Downer said the government was committed to keeping its soldiers in place but acknowledged that “the public’s patience is wearing pretty thin on this issue.”