Special report: Tensions accelerate in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi tribal leaders inaugurated their first conference in Baghdad on Saturday when more than five hundred personalities gathered to debate issues of sovereignty,role of militias and the Baath party uprooting.

    Late on June, Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki unveiled aplan for national reconciliation but left several controversy points unsolved.

    "What we need today in that no Iraqi to be out of the workshop of rebuilding new Iraq," Maliki told the televised conference in his speech.

    "However, this doesn't mean that we won't have disputes, but we hold talk," Maliki urged.

    "Iraq's liberation from any kind of foreign influence will not be achieved unless we achieve the national unity to block the path in front of whoever want to incite sectarian strife among us,"Maliki said.

    Maliki's plan, two months ago failed to put a timetable for foreign troops withdrawal and laws disqualifying former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from important jobs.

    It also failed to offer a clear path for disarming the militias,which are currently seen as the greatest security threat.

    The plan represented an olive branch to Sunni militants, but the initial draft seems to have run into opposition from some Shiite leaders as well as U.S. officials who felt it went too far.

    Most Iraqis are strongly adhere to their tribes (local name Ashira), nearly half of Iraqis are more loyal to their clans or tribes than to the national government.

    Almost thirty of the 150 or so identifiable tribes in Iraq are the most influential. The powerful tribes, the nexus of Iraqi society are grouped into federations (locally Qabila). Below the level of the tribe, there is the clan (locally Fukhdh). Enditem