CAIRO (Reuters) - A congress of leading Sunni Muslim clerics issued a call to holy war on Thursday against the Damascus government and its Shi'ite allies, hardening sectarian confrontation across the Middle East over the Syrian conflict.
Alarmed by reverses for the mainly Sunni rebels since the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah threw its full weight behind President Bashar al-Assad last month, Sunni religious authorities have stepped up rhetoric that could fuel a wider regional conflict and communal bloodshed in Syria and elsewhere.