Iraq's Maliki says militias must join armed forces

BAGHDAD, Apr 22 (Reuters) Iraq's Prime Minister- designate Jawad al-Maliki today said the country's militias must merge with the US-trained armed forces, despite calls from the United States to disarm them.

''Arms should be in the hands of the government. There is a law that calls for the merging of militias with the armed forces,'' Maliki said in his first policy speech after he was asked by President Jalal Talabani to head Iraq's new government.

Iraq's interim government has promised several times it will disband Iraq's powerful sectarian militias but has never delivered.

Militias are tied to political parties so disbanding them would be highly sensitive.

Iraq's Sunni Arab minority has accused the Shi'ite government of condoning anti-Sunni death squads responsible for the killing of hundreds of Sunnis in purges around Baghdad. Shi'ite officials strongly deny this.

Several militia groups, drawn along ethnic and religious lines, operate in Iraq, and U.S ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has said they are killing more people than insurgents.

Tit-for-tat sectarian killings since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra has pushed Iraq toward the brink of civil war.

US officials have voiced mounting concern that violence by pro-government, pro-Iranian Shi'ite militia members could prolong unrest by alienating Sunnis.

REUTERS KD PM2132