The visibly agitated moderate sheikh stood aside, silenced by an extremist militant preaching violence against Iraq’s security forces.

“The man was wearing a dishdasha and on top of that, a shoulder holster containing a gun,” said one worshipper who asked not to be identified. “The sheikh appeared extremely agitated. When the man delivered the sermon the sheikh kept staring at the floor like he didn’t want to hear it.”

The stifling of conciliatory voices among Iraq’s Sunni religious leaders bodes ill for prospects of quelling an extremist insurgency that has grabbed large swathes of the country.

The armed man preached that “it was halal to rob or kill members of Iraq’s security forces,” in a sermon meant as a slap in the face to the regular sheikh’s edict a week earlier forbidding such acts.

Other sources in Fallujah, a city crowded with minarets and known as the “city of mosques,” corroborated the worshipper’s account, and said that terrorists now dictate the contents of Friday sermons.

Extremist militants have controlled the cities of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq’s mainly Sunni western Anbar province since early January, and last month ISIL terrorists overran vast tracts of Iraq’s north.

The onslaught began in the northern city of Mosul, where tribal and military sources say ISIL executed 13 Sunni sheikhs for failing to pledge allegiance to the terrorist group led by notorious figure Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

One of those killed was an imam at Mosul’s Great Noureddine Mosque, where Baghdadi made a brazen public appearance on July 4 to deliver a Ramadan sermon.

In an unverified video posted online, Baghdadi calls from the mosque pulpit on Muslims to “obey” him, in a clear bid by the terrorist fighter and battlefield strategist for religious authority.

Such tactics have sown fear among mainstream Sunni sheikhs.

“When ISIL came to Fallujah, the imams and religious speakers did not receive a direct threat, but they left the city after they decided that there would be no religious common ground with emirs of ISIL,” said a Sunni sheikh who declined to be identified.

The sheikh is the brother of the worshipper who heard the inflammatory sermon in Fallujah. He called his brother after the sermon to warn him about what had happened.

“It has become a well-known sermon in Fallujah ... Members of the security forces who do not repent to ISIL, their funds are halal. Those who do not repent and give up their arms are wanted men,” said the sheikh, who has fled to the northern city of Kirkuk. “If I and other sheikhs go back to Fallujah now, you don’t know what will greet you. Assassination? Treachery? You just don’t know. Am I a wanted man?”

ISIL insurgents have not reached Baghdad, where Sunni sheikh Ahmad al-Ani still feels confident enough to preach against the terrorist group.

“The path these people are treading is a blind one, which will lead to the abyss ... These [people] do not represent Sunnis at all,” he said.

“Everybody is exposed to danger ... The fear is that everyone is silent, and puts their head in the sand.”

ISIL propaganda draws young and enthusiastic terrorists from across the Middle East as well as Europe and the US.

The sheikh in Kirkuk said he had been approached by a father desperate for him to talk to his son, who had grown his hair and beard and run off to join ISIL. “I couldn’t speak to him,” the sheikh said. “I’m afraid he might slander me and say this man forbids me from jihad.”

BA/BA