TIKRIT, Iraq -- Influential spiritual leaders from Saddam Hussein's hometown, a bastion of anti-American sentiment, are joining forces to persuade Iraqis to abandon the violent insurgency, one of the leaders said yesterday.

The effort marks a new willingness to cooperate with US forces, a shift in the thinking of at least some key members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, which lost political dominance with the fall of Hussein and has largely formed the most outspoken and violent opposition to the US-led occupation.

Sheik Sabah Mahmoud, leader of the Sada tribe, said he and 10 other tribal elders have formed a reconciliation committee in Tikrit to speak to other Iraqi leaders about trying to persuade rebels to put down weapons. He said he took that message last week to a group of scholars, religious leaders, and other prominent figures meeting in Baghdad.

"It's about time we put our differences aside and looked to the future," Mahmoud said. "I told them: `The reality is, [US forces] are here on the ground; the past is dead. Give the Americans a chance to see what they are going to give us.' "

The committee was formalized Saturday, he said.

"It's just the beginning," Mahmoud added during a meeting in the provincial government building with a US Army commander and seven other spiritual leaders...