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Download Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents his troops are battling in western Anbar province, in his strongest such statement since fighting started there early this year. Security forces have been fighting insurgents from the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Anbar's two main cities - Fallujah and Ramadi -since January, when the arrest of a Sunni lawmaker and the clearing of an anti-government protest camp prompted a tribal revolt and allowed the ISIL to set up fighting positions in the cities. Maliki's remarks play to Iraqi fears of the Sunni Arab states as he tries to burnish his standing as a defender of the mainly Shiite country before elections at the end of April. Violence has escalated in the last 12 months -ISIL has led a devastating campaign of suicide bombings since mid-2013 - and Maliki said in a mid-February speech that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were offering money to recruit fighters in Fallujah. More than 700 people died in violence in Iraq in February, not including nearly 300 reported deaths in western Anbar province. Last year was the deadliest since 2008, with nearly 8,000 killed. "I accuse them of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them,” he told France 24 television late on Saturday. | 
