Al Qaeda Ally Declares All-Out War on Iraqi Election

46 minutes ago

By Matt Spetalnick

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared all-out war on Iraq (news - web sites)'s landmark elections on Sunday 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 that 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 coming election and urged Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s once-dominant Sunni minority to wage 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.

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 2003 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.

"We are determined to do our best to put an end to the escalation of violence," Allawi told BBC television.

Many Sunni leaders have called for an election boycott, saying insurgent attacks in the Sunni heartland will 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.

HOSTAGE MYSTERY

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

A mystery surrounding the fate of eight Chinese labourers 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 on Sunday 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.

Zarqawi vowed in an earlier audiotape that militants were ready to fight for years to drive out U.S.-led forces.

Allawi said Sunday it was premature to talk about a withdrawal of U.S.-led forces until Iraq's fledgling security services were fully trained and combat-ready.

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.

But most Iraqis have little faith in their security forces, which have hardly been able to protect themselves.

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

Sunday, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna 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 combined with a daily dose of bombs and mortars to reduce confidence in Allawi's government, even as he heads a slate of candidates for a new national assembly.

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

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