SUNNI CLERIC CONDEMNS SHIA INFIDELS

Saudi Arabia officially supports Iraq's Shia dominated government but many notable Saudi clerics do not:

A group of prominent Saudi clerics have called on Sunni Muslims around the world to mobilise against Shi'ites in Iraq, although a statement they issued fell short of calling for a jihad, or holy war.

There has now been a follow-up to the early December call to arms:

An influential cleric of Saudi Arabia's hardline Sunni school of Islam has denounced Shi'ite Muslims as "infidels" in a new religious edict that comes amid rising sectarian tension in the region.

"The rejectionists (Shi'ites) in their entirety are the worst of the Islamic nation's sects. They bear all the characteristics of infidels," Sheikh Abdel-Rahman al-Barrak said in the fatwa, or ruling, distributed on Islamist Web sites.

"They are in truth polytheist infidels, though they hide this," it said, citing theological differences 14 centuries after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, such as reverence of shrines which followers of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi school consider abhorrent.

Barrak was among 38 clerics who issued a statement this month calling on world Sunnis to support their brethren in Iraq.

Sounds like the Sunni - Shia conflict is going global. Al Qaeda will be pleased.