Qaeda ally declares all-out war on Iraqi election
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-24 10:08

Iraqis hang a campaign poster advertising a list of candidates from the United Iraqi Alliance for the country's upcoming national elections in central Baghdad, Jan. 23, 2005. Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared a 'bitter war' on Iraq's parliamentary elections next Sunday, in an audio tape purporting to come from the Jordanian militant and posted on the Internet. [Reuters]

Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared all-out war on Sunday on Iraq's landmark elections in a warning intended to scare away voters a week before they go to the polls amid a raging insurgency.

But interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed his U.S.-backed government would do everything possible to safeguard more than 5,000 voting stations against what he called "evil forces determined to hurt Iraq."

Zarqawi, a shadowy Jordanian militant who tops America's wanted list in Iraq, berated the country's Shi'ite majority for embracing the election and urged Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni minority to wage what he termed a holy fight against it.

"We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it," a speaker identified as Zarqawi said in an audio tape on the Internet.

"Those who vote ... are infidels. And with God as my witness, I have informed them (of our intentions)," he said.

Zarqawi's network has assassinated politicians and beheaded foreign hostages. Despite a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, he has eluded a U.S.-led manhunt.

BLOODBATH FEARS

His group's almost daily attacks -- including most of the deadliest suicide bombings of the past year -- have raised fears of a bloodbath during next Sunday's election, Iraq's first since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

Iraqi officials say Sunni guerrillas are not only trying to wreck the election, which is expected to cement the new-found power of the long-oppressed 60 percent Shi'ite majority, but also want to provoke sectarian civil war.

In the latest attack, a security guard was killed when a bomb blew up an election office in a lawless region south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death," police said.

The U.S. military said one of its soldiers was killed by small arms fire in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, bringing to 1,080 the number of U.S. troops killed in action in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

"We are determined to do our best to put an end to the escalation of violence," Allawi told the BBC, adding it was premature to talk about U.S.-led forces withdrawing until Iraq's fledgling security services were fully trained and combat ready.

US soldiers are reflected in a pool of rain water as they patrol the notorious Haifa street district, a haven of the insurgency in central Baghdad. Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared war on the elections which he said were aimed at bringing the country under Shiite control, in an audiotape posted on an Islamist website. [AFP]

Many Sunni leaders have called for an election boycott, saying insurgent attacks in the Sunni heartland would prevent voting and skew the outcome in favor of the Shi'ites.

A low turnout by Sunnis, who had held sway in Iraqi politics since the 1920s, would undermine the election's credibility.

Electoral Commission official Saeed al-Battat said he was confident of a big turnout in the southern Sh'ite city of Basra.

"The security situation in Basra compared with other areas in Iraq is ideal, I would say," he said.

Militants have kidnapped more than 120 foreigners over the last year, killing about a third of them.

CHINESE FREED

A mystery surrounding the fate of eight Chinese laborers taken hostage this month was resolved when the Chinese embassy tracked them down a day after guerrillas said they had freed them. Their captors had originally threatened them with death.

China, a critic of the U.S.-led invasion, had appealed for their release, saying it had warned its citizens to stay out of Iraq. The eight young men smiled and shook hands with Chinese officials who greeted them at a mosque in the western city of Ramadi. A Chinese diplomat said no ransom had been paid.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, predicted that Iraqis would be able to cast ballots in most of the country but acknowledged there would be "problematic areas."

U.S. commanders have said four of Iraq's 18 provinces, accounting for a quarter of the population, are unsafe to vote.

Iraqi police and soldiers will guard polling sites, while U.S.-led forces keep their distance to avoid creating the impression of Iraqis voting under occupiers' guns.

Guerrillas have killed hundreds of Iraqi security men they brand as collaborators with U.S.-led forces.

On Sunday, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna group released a video of a masked gunman executing an Iraqi National Guard officer, saying it was to "serve as an example for other apostates."

The government plans to seal Iraq's borders, close airports, impose curfews and enforce traffic bans on election day -- all to prevent suicide bombings and other attacks.

Chronic fuel shortages, power blackouts and water outages have accompanied the violence.

But Baghdad residents received a boost on Sunday when water was restored to nearly half of the capital after a week-long crisis caused by sabotage of a water main.

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