He had proposed a similar concept for Arab unity, but was rebuffed.

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Through the 1950s and 1960s, army coups as far afield as Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq all produced regimes that sacrificed freedoms on the altar of progress, stability and Arab unity.

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Hazem Salem Ahmed, a Sunni Arab from the National Unity list, was shot dead outside his home in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

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The general framework for today's meeting is that Iraq's primarily Shiite Arab leaders will try to convince their Sunni Arab neighbors that they are a national unity government and not a sectarian one.

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At a hastily called Arab League meeting, envoys from the 22 states merely proclaimed support for Palestinian unity and formed a fact-finding committee.

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As the meeting wound up, the Arab leaders could at least congratulate themselves on putting on their best show of unity since the Gulf war.

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The communique emphasized the importance of strengthening Arab and African cooperation to fight piracy and noted the respect the group has for the sovereignty, unity and independence of Somalia.

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