(UPI) -- For decades, Shiite scholar Mohammed Mohammed Ali, 52, fought Saddam Hussein as a top official of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, known as the INC.

Now as he crisscrosses his homeland, this eminent cleric is involved in a two-fronted struggle.In Iraq, he heads the National Consensus Alliance, or NCA, striving to unite all moderate forces -- Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, Turkmen and other.

And worldwide, he battles stereotypical thinking, particularly what he calls the "media hype" about the potential perils of a civil war between the two principal Muslim groups -- the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority in Iraq.

"There will be no civil war," Ali stated categorically in a telephone call from London, where he is taking a little break from electioneering back home.He said people should not be duped by the bloody activities of the "groups of darkness" operating in Iraq.

"Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis have always been moderate," he said."There are many marriages between members of the two Muslim persuasions."Perhaps Ali's most important argument against the talk of civil war is this: "Cousins do not kill cousins.Many large tribes, such as the Shammar and the Jaburi federations, have both Shiites and Sunnis among its members.You can't seriously believe that tribes will engage in internal wars."

Ali, whose NCA leadership includes Christians as well as Muslims, insisted that historically the relationship even between the faithful of these two monotheistic religious has been harmonious.

"Who do you suppose cooked for Shiites during the recent Ashura celebrations in Kerbala (they were commemorating the martyred Imam Hussain, Mohammed's grandson)?" Ali asked."Christians dressed in black like us.They do this every year."

Of course, Ali allowed, Christians would not go as far as to flagellate themselves during the Ashura processions, as devout Shiite men do.

As for Muslim ecumenism, Ali went on, it is not uncommon for Shiites to be led by Sunni imams in Friday prayers."I have done this myself," he said."In fact, some of our grand ayatollahs have written that it was all right for Shiites to pray after Sunni imams during the Hajj (annual pilgrimage) in Mecca."

According to Ali, some Iraqi villages have both Shiite and Sunni residents but only one mosque.So both groups worship in the same sanctuary.Ali insisted that even "regular Wahhabis" -- meaning, not those of the extremist wing of that Sunni sect -- get on well with other groups.

Westerners should not be misled by the gruesome images from Iraq on their television screens, Ali said, adding, "Moderation and tolerance have been a tradition in present-day Iraq for centuries."

Albert Yelda, Ali's friend and erstwhile colleague in the INC leadership and now Iraq's ambassador at the Holy See, confirmed this: "The prophet Mohammed himself issued a fatwa (legal instruction) to leave Assyrian Christians in peace because he was so impressed with their scientific and medical accomplishments."

The fatwa vanished in the middle of the 19th century.And only then, in the declining decades of the Ottoman Empire, did the Calvary of Christians in this region commence.

So if moderation corresponds to Iraqi traditions, who is it that sends suicide bombs to Shiite mosques, killing scores of men, women and children? Who are the people attacking churches, prompting tens of thousands of Christians to go into exile? Ali -- who has just finished campaigning in all of Iraq for his Alliance, which seeks to organize forces representing moderate political and social entities from "the whole mosaic of the Iraqi people" -- blames primarily outside extremists plus local people they have bought, and former Baath Party activists.

But, he insisted, "These groups of darkness are not growing."As Ali sees it, there are two reasons why they -- as opposed to the moderate majority of Iraqis -- shape the image of the nation in foreign eyes.

"First, when some of them are captured, they are not being dealt with swiftly," he said."They should be tried and punished, and that means executed if they have committed murder."

"The other point is that the international community does nothing to support moderate Iraqi groups," Ali maintained."It costs $6,000 to $10,000 to run political one-minute spots on al-Arabiya or other television channels.

"We pay for this out of our own pocket and with the help of friends.We don't receive money from abroad."

Ali's group fielded 45 candidates, including five Christians and 17 women, for the recent elections to the constitutional assembly; none of them -- intellectuals, petroleum specialists, teachers, lawyers, former diplomats, accountants and local government officials -- won a seat.

But convinced that his party, though the underdog, is truly representative of Iraqis, Ali remains undaunted."We'll try again in December," he said."That's when we'll have the truly important elections -- for the national Parliament."

By Uwe Siemon-Netto