Iraqi Sunnis: Zarqawi Won't Stop Us From Voting

Apparently it's Bizarro World Day at the UK Guardian, which publishes this very-hopeful article about Iraq:

Despite threatening to block previous votes, this time the Jordanian militant, believed to be responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Iraq, has been silent. "He's changed his strategy because he has discovered how confident and determined we are to vote," Azhar Abdel Majeed al-Samarrai, a leading candidate for the Iraqi Consensus Front, an alliance of the main Sunni parties, told the Guardian yesterday.

...

But the clear desire of many Sunnis to vote next week has changed the dynamic within the insurgency. "Zarqawi is in a dilemma because many Sunnis want to vote," a senior western political official said this week. The same dilemma confronts Iraq's homegrown insurgents, who rely mainly on the Sunni population for support and recruits.

A Sunni cleric from the influential Association of Muslim Scholars told worshippers at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque yesterday it was a "religious duty" to vote next week. "The date of December 15 is a landmark event. It is a decisive battle that will determine our future. If you give your vote to the wrong people, then the occupation will continue and the country would be lost," he said.

A crucial moment in the campaign for Sunni votes was the recent murder of Sheikh Ayad al-Izzi, a cleric and engineer who was a leading member of the Iraqi Islamic party and a candidate for the Iraqi Consensus Front. He had just left a campaign rally in Falluja on November 28 when gunmen drove past his car and killed him and two colleagues. A huge crowd came to his funeral last week.

"I think Zarqawi will become smaller and smaller, especially after we lost this man from our list," Azhar Abdel Majeed al-Samarrai said yesterday. Perhaps under pressure of mounting Sunni anger, al-Qaida in Iraq took no responsibility for the murder and even put out a statement denouncing it.

And Speaking of Voting... Don't let al-Zarqawi scare you off of voting for Ace.

Think of the kittens.

posted by Ace at 08:15 PM

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