The King told Sheikh Harith Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, at a meeting in Amman that Jordan supports national reconciliation efforts in Iraq.
The Monarch warned Iraq and its people will be the only losers if sectarian violence continues, adding that targeting holy places, whether Sunni or Shiite, the kidnappings and killings violate the sanctity of Muslim blood and the teachings of Islam and all human values.
The meeting, part of King Abdullah's efforts to defuse the Iraqi crisis, was ahead of a Wednesday visit to Jordan by US President George W. Bush, who will meet with the Monarch and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki.
A White House official was quoted as saying that Bush and Maliki were also to discuss Iran. The official gave no further details.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would do whatever it could to help provide security to Iraq amid warnings the country was on the brink of civil war.
Ahmadinejad made the pledge at the start of a visit to Iran by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, whose trip was delayed for two days because of a curfew imposed after a bombing on Thursday killed 202 people in a Shiite Muslim stronghold. The curfew was lifted on Monday.
The United States is facing calls to engage Tehran in direct dialogue to help end the bloodshed, which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said had pushed Iraq closer to civil war.
"The Iranian nation and government will definitely stand beside their brother, Iraq, and any help the government and nation of Iran can give to strengthen security in Iraq will be given," Ahmadinejad said, Iran's ISNA news agency reported.
"We have no limitation for cooperation in any field." Ahmadinejad was speaking shortly after Talabani's arrival and just before the two presidents held formal talks.
Talabani said he would discuss improving ties between the neighbours, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s.
"In this trip, we will also talk about Iraq's security file because Iraq needs the comprehensive assistance of Iran to fight terrorism and create stability," ISNA quoted Talabani as saying.
Political analysts said Iran might try to use talks with Talabani to show off its influence to the United States and bolster its position ahead of any dialogue with its old enemy.
They also said Iran's ability to stem the bloodshed was limited.
US officials say the violence is being fuelled by Iran's backing for Shiite groups and its weapons exports. Iran dismisses the charge.
Annan talks about civil war as US jet crashes
Meanwhile, mortar rounds crashed into an oil processing facility near the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, igniting a huge blaze, and a US Air Force jet with one pilot crashed while supporting American soldiers fighting in Anbar province, a hotbed of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
The mortars started a fire that burned for several hours before it was extinguished, the US military said. The mortar shells hit a pipeline filtering facility 25 kilometres northwest of Kirkuk at 6:30pm, shutting down the flow of crude to the massive Beiji refinery to the southwest, according to an official at the North Oil Co., who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to reporters.
Kirkuk sits amid some of Iraq's richest crude oil deposits.
Earlier Monday, a bomb exploded beneath an oil pipeline and set it on fire south of Baghdad, and Iraqi and American forces were deployed to secure the area, police said.
No injuries were reported in the 7:30am blast near Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, said police 1st Lt. Haider Satar. He said the bomb had been planted beneath the pipeline, which carries crude oil from storage tanks in nearby Latifiyah to the Dora refinery in Baghdad. The fire was put out about noon.
Since the US-led war toppled Saddam Hussein in March 2003, the country's oil industry has suffered many such attacks on its pipelines.
The F-16CG jet that crashed was supporting coalition ground forces when it went down at about 1:35 p.m. in Anbar province, about 32 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, the military said in a brief statement.
The statement had no information about the suspected cause of the crash or the fate of the pilot.
Mohammed Obeidi, an Iraqi who lives in the nearby town of Karmah, said by telephone that he saw the jet flying up and down erratically before it nose-dived and exploded in a farm field.
He said other US warplanes rushed to the crash site and were circling around it.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a US military's spokesman, said he doubted the jet was shot down because F-16's fly very fast and have not encountered weapons capable of taking them down in Iraq.
Al Jazeera satellite television showed videotape pictures of the wreckage in a field and what looked to be portions of a tangled parachute nearby. The broadcaster said the video included scenes of the dead pilot but that they were too graphic to air.
One shot showed what appeared to be the tail number and included the letters CG. The jet that crashed was an F-16-CG, the military said. Another segment showed an air force seal that said Air Combat Command.
The US command also said three of its soldiers were killed and two wounded during combat operations in Baghdad on Sunday. At least 2,878 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The government fully lifted a curfew on Monday, allowing vehicles back on the roads and reopening the international airport, on the fourth day after suspected Sunni insurgents used bombs and mortars to kill more than 200 people in Sadr City, a large Shiite slum..
Also Monday, Iraq's parliament speaker implemented new rules banning reporters from the legislative building and imposed a 30-minute delay on broadcast of sessions, an apparent bid to squelch information reaching the public about the increasingly bitter debates between Shiite and Sunni lawmakers. The delay would allow the speaker to censor debate that he considered overly inflammatory.
The new regulations reflect Maliki's contention that Iraq's violence is a result of excessively vitriolic political rhetoric. A particularly bitter debate last week preceded the devastating Sadr City attacks.
Across the country on Monday a total of 91 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence. Forty-one bodies were found dumped in the capital alone.
By Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Washington, D.C.
Posted November 29th, 2006 by Armen Hareyan
