By Mariam Karouny BAGHDAD, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Growing suspicions among leaders of Iraq's Shi'ite majority that the United States is shifting its favour toward once dominant Sunnis are fuelling the tensions that have broken into the open between Baghdad and Washington. Iraq's ethnic Kurds share the concerns, which senior Shi'ite Muslim officials say are at the root of the public spat over security between Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President George W. Bush's top officials in Iraq. "We feel there is an American-Sunni agreement under way ... to give Sunnis more authority," a senior Shi'ite government official said, before Maliki's dramatic order on Tuesday for U.S. troops to end a blockade of a Shi'ite militia stronghold. "This will only escalate the situation." Sunni insurgents, many loyal to ousted leader Saddam Hussein, and al Qaeda's Sunni Islamists bombers are behind much of the violence that has plagued Iraq since the U.S. invasion. In recent months, however, the United States has raised the pressure on Maliki, himself a Shi'ite Islamist, to disarm Shi'ite militias held responsible by Washington and Iraq's Sunni Arabs for a surge in sectarian killings and kidnappings. That pressure, which Iraqi Shi'ite sources link at least partly to U.S. fears of Shi'ite Iran, has been accompanied by continued contacts between U.S. officials and leaders of the Sunni insurgency to try to draw them into the political process. Afghan-born U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, whose own Sunni background is a source of suspicion for Shi'ites, also wants the new constitution reviewed to address Sunni concerns it may hand control of Iraq's oilfields to Shi'ites and Kurds. U.S. officials deny bias: "The government itself is involved in trying to reach out to Sunni groups," a senior embassy official said, while conceding there was tension. Shi'ites and Kurds were oppressed under Saddam and many of their leaders came back from exile after his overthrow with little sympathy for his fellow Sunni Arabs. Many Shi'ite leaders took refuge in Iran during the 1980s war with Saddam's Iraq. Sunni Arab leaders, with about one in five parliamentary seats, dismiss suggestions they are favoured by Washington -- though many have dropped calls for U.S. troops to leave as sectarian death squad attacks on their community increase. PATIENCE THIN The government still focuses on fighting Sunni insurgents, Abdul Kareem al-Samarraie of the Iraqi Islamic Party said: "They seem to be forgetting about the death squads." One source in Maliki's Shi'ite Alliance, the dominant group in the six-month-old national unity government with Kurds and Sunnis, said patience with the U.S. position was wearing thin. "There is a lot of frustration especially among people who supported the political process," said the source, who like many spoke anonymously in order not to be identified with overt anti-American sentiment. Another source, a high-ranking Kurdish politician, said Sunnis had "already got more than they deserve" in the government and were not contributing to stemming violence. A senior government source added: "Recently all we hear from the Americans is their focus on fighting militias as if terrorism no longer exists. This tells us where they going." Maliki, who relies for support on the very militia leaders Washington wants him to stop, told Reuters last week he refused to draw a veil over the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda attacks. "Terrorism is the main reason" for the turmoil, Maliki said. "We can talk to the militias. We know who they are. But who do terrorists follow?" Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, said the high U.S. death toll in Iraq in October, which surpassed 100 for the first time in nearly two years, also showed the real threat came from terrorism and insurgents. Several Shi'ite sources said the American stance also reflected a preoccupation with Iran, which has its own standoff with the United States over its nuclear programme. They said they suspect Washington wants a reliable ally in Iraq in the event of conflict with the Islamic Republic -- as it found in Saddam during his war with Iran -- and was pressing for Iraqi Shi'ite militias to be disarmed so they could not turn against U.S. forces if conflict broke out. "The Americans can't understand that we're not followers of Iran even though we have much in common," one source said.
