A top Iraqi Shia politician today backed calls to disband the country's heavily armed militias.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), commanded a mass rally of his followers "to support the government to solve the issue of militias, and to spread the implementation of law and order".
The militias are blamed for inflaming a vicious sectarian conflict that has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
Sciri is allied with the Badr Organization, one of the most feared militias in Iraq, but is also a key member of the two- month-old government of national unity, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Mr Maliki has vowed to disarm all armed gangs as part of a strategy to curb the insurgency and increasingly brazen sectarian attacks, which now kill 100 Iraqis every day.
In his address, Mr Hakim also instructed the rally "to stop the series of displacements, killings, kidnappings and sectarianism".
A suspected Shia militia cordoned off an entire Baghdad neighbourhood earlier this month, killing everyone they could find with a Sunni name, while attacks against Shias are an almost daily occurrence.
At least 27 were killed today by bombs in a mainly Shia shopping area of central Baghdad.