KUFA, Iraq, July 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Several Iraqi scholars preached Friday, July 30, against a Saudi proposal to send an Islamic force to Iraq, as a little-known group threatened to attack any countries implementing it.

"I advise all countries that want to help Iraq, not to send forces here," said Shiite leader Muqtada Sadr at Friday prayers in the main mosque in Kufa, south of Baghdad.

"If such forces come to Iraq, they will be seen as collaborators of the occupation," Sadr was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

In Fallujah, where at least 13 people were killed by US occupation forces in fierce clashes occurred overnight, Sheikh Ihsan al-Duri said he opposed "any Arab or Muslim force in Iraq".

"Such forces could have served before (the occupation) but never now," he told worshippers at the Rawi mosque in the flashpoint city.

In Baghdad, Sheikh Mehdi Sumaydai also denounced the ideas, welcomed by Powell after talks with his Saudi counterpart and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"We don't want (Arab and Muslim) forces to shield the occupier because we don't want to see Muslims killed," he said.

A deployment by Muslim nations would be a public relations coup for the United States, which has seen its led forces in Iraq reduced by the withdrawal of the Philippines, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Many ordinary Iraqis also reacted with anger to the Saudi proposal, saying Iraqis could restore security to their country if they were allowed to do so.

"We do not want Arab or Islamic forces to join occupation forces here," said one citizen on screen to Al-Jazeera, which said the proposal was met with a wave of criticisms in the country.

The idea - somewhat surprising given the reluctance of Muslim and Arab nations to send forces to Iraq so far - could shore up the US-led occupation forces, now facing a wave of attacks in the chaotic country.

After the Saudi proposal was released, a group threatened to attack Muslim countries that send troops to Iraq.

"We will not remain silent if troops are sent to Iraq by any Arab or Muslim country, especially by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and others," said the statement by the group calling itself the Islamic Tawhid Group, posted on an Islamist Web site.

The identity of the group was not clear but it had a similar name to the Islamic Tawhid Group, which had threatened Italy and Australia Saturday, July 24, with attacks if they did not withdraw their troops from Iraq.

The group behind Thursday's message said it was addressing the Saudi government and Pakistan "who are seeking to send Muslim forces to Iraq to please their masters, the Jews and Christians."

Earlier Thursday, Allawi, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, called on Muslim nations to join a proposed force of Islamic troops in Iraq. Allawi met Powell in Saudi Arabia and embraced the proposal.

But the proposal had aroused suspicions among Arab analysts, who expected the deployment would draw ire of ordinary people already sharing anti-American sentiments after the Iraq invasion on claims of weapons of mass destruction, none of which have been found more than 15 months after occupation.

The Muslim force initiative "will be a good one if it is fully implemented in a way that will enable Muslim troops to control security in Iraq and the Iraqi people will welcome it," Dawoud Al-Sheryan, a Saudi political analyst, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying Thursday.

But, reflecting Arab suspicions of American motives, Al-Sheryan questioned whether the idea was just a cover for a prolonged US occupation of Iraq.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest Islamic group, was even more negative.

"In principle I totally reject and oppose any Arab or Islamic country sending troops to support the occupation in Iraq," he told the AP.

Faris Ghanim, a Yemeni political analyst, said Saudi Arabia has the stature to bring in other Arab and Muslim nations, underlining its moral weight as the custodian of Islam's main shrines and the likelihood it would help pay for the force.

Saudi officials, on their part, said they launched the initiative to address mounting concerns in the Islamic world about the ongoing deployment of the US-led forces in Iraq as well as Saudi Arabia's own security concerns.

Saudi Arabia would not send its own soldiers, however, because Iraq's interim government has said it doesn't want any troops from neighboring countries.

Powell said the proposed Muslim force could provide protection to the United Nations in Iraq.

Pakistan, Malaysia, Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Morocco have been mentioned as possible sources of troops.