"I urge you ... to maintain security and preserve (the country's) riches ... and I also invite you to cooperate for the future," Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said during his sermon in one of Beirut's Shiite mosques.

Iraq's people must "prove to the world that it is civilised, through its history and its values, including Islam, and that it will not allow itself to descend into a chaos which could be used by the occupiers to achieve their own goals," he said.

Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Lebanon's Shiite fundamentalists, called on Iraqis to unite and act "responsibly" as well "clearly analyse the motives of the occupiers in order not to see their hopes dashed once again".

Since US troops took control of Baghdad on Wednesday and Saddam's repressive machine collapsed, the Iraqi capital has been the scene of widespread looting which has now extended to the rest of the country.

Many members of the former leadership have had their houses sacked and looted along with government ministries, but on Friday Baghdad's internationally renowned archaelogical museum was also targeted as well as hospitals.

Most of the looters are reportedly from the impoverished and majority Shiite Saddam City neighbourhood of the capital.

Iraq is a mostly Shiite country but President Saddam Hussein and the top cadres from his Baath Party who ruled for the past three decades are from the Sunni Muslim minority.

SPACE.WIRE