An alliance of Sunni insurgent groups claimed yesterday to be establishing a separate Sunni state in the west of Iraq in the latest demonstration of the growing fragmentation of the country.

The statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of fanatical Sunni groups that includes Al Qaeda, is the first time a Sunni body has supported the breakup of Iraq.

It said the move was in response to the passing by the Iraqi parliament last week of a federalism law that would permit provinces to join together to form selfruling regions.That is expected to result in the creation of a semiautonomous Shiite zone in the south, similar to the Kurdish state in the north.

A separate Sunni state was needed to protect itself from such an eventuality, the insurgent group said.

At least 117 people have been killed in sectarian attacks since Friday and at least 57 died yesterday in shootings and bombings.They included the brother of the chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein’s trial, who was shot in front of his wife. The attacks have focused around Balad, a Shiite enclave in a largely Sunni region north of Baghdad. It began on Friday when 17 Shiite farm workers were beheaded.Shiite fighters responded in force, with Sunni tribal leaders claiming that boys as young as 10 had to be given guns to help protect their villages.

The announcement by the Mujahideen Shura Council gives further credence to fears that Iraq will be unable to hold itself together.

The size and nature of the state it says it intends to form provides an indication of future battle lines.Not only the Sunnidominated provinces of Anbar, Diyala, Salaheddin, and Nineveh would be included, but also the oil-rich region of Kirkuk, which the Kurds claim, and parts of Babil and Wasit, which are predominately Shiite.

The council also claims all of Baghdad and pledges to implement a fundamentalist form of Shura law reminiscent of the Taliban. More moderate Sunni groups condemned the council. The speaker of the Iraqi parliament and a Sunni, Mahmud al-Meshhedani, called it “vulgar with no religion, who only kill others under the pretext of jihad.”

At a meeting in Kirkuk yesterday, 500 Sunni Arab tribal leaders and representatives said they were committed to maintaining the unity of Iraq. But their solution to the turmoil was no less contentious, as they demanded the immediate release of Saddam.

In a letter released through one of his lawyers in the Jordanian capital of Amman yesterday, Saddam told his countrymen that the “hour of liberation is at hand.”

[President Bush personally assured Iraq’s prime minister yesterday that he has no plans to pull American forces out and to ignore speculation that a deadline would be enforced against the fledgling Baghdad government, the Associated Press reported.

The president’s pledge came in a 15-minute morning phone call with Prime Minister al-Maliki, who told Mr. Bush he was concerned because he had been hearing that America was giving him a two-month timeline to operate on his own.]