Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq threatened military action in a bid to prevent a parliamentary election being held next month, as official campaigning started in the country on Friday.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi said in an audiotape that his al-Qaeda front, the Islamic State of Iraq, had “decided to prevent the elections by all legitimate means possible, primarily by military means,” US monitors SITE said.
Baghdadi condemned the March 7 general election as a political crime plotted by Iraq’s Shiite majority, according to the 34-minute recording posted on jihadist Web sites and picked up by SITE.
The vote is seen as a key test of reconciliation for Iraq, which has been wracked by sectarian hostilities since late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was ousted following the US-led invasion in 2003.
It is also considered by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete US military withdrawal by the end of next year.
The run-up to campaign opening had been dominated by the legacy of Saddam and his Sunni Arab former elite, which still looms large more than two years after his execution.
A row over candidates accused of ties to Saddam’s outlawed Baath party has left key members of the country’s dominant Shiite majority anxious to extinguish every trace of his influence, fanning tension among Sunnis.
An integrity and accountability committee announced on Thursday that 28 of 177 candidates banned from the vote for alleged Baathist links would be allowed to stand after all, a small proportion of more than 500 originally blacklisted.
Two Sunni parliamentary stalwarts, Saleh al-Mutlak and Dhafer al-Ani from the secular Iraqiya list of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, are among those who have been excluded.
“This is the coup de grace of the political process and the suicide of democracy in Iraq,” Mutlak said in a television interview.
“I don’t think this measure will help the turnout but they will not succeed in splitting us from our people,” he added.
Iraqiya posters featuring Mutlak could still be seen in Baghdad on Friday.
Allawi and fellow secular list leader Jawad Bolani, currently the interior minister, are both trying to unseat Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite. They were the worst affected by the ban.
The lead-up to the election, the second ballot to elect a parliament and government in Iraq since Saddam was toppled, has been marred by a lack of national unity.
This was highlighted outside Baghdad, with several provincial council leaders demanding the sacking of public sector workers whom they say are Baathists.
In Karbala Province, lists of people to be fired from their jobs have been drawn up.
“We started to form an accountability and justice committee, following public demand, and we will implement the law by eliminating Baathists from the departments of the province,” Karbala Governor Muhammad al-Mussawi said.
“We will inform the department directors, giving them a list of names who were part of the Baath party and providing supporting evidence,” he added.
The deputy governor of Babil Province, a brigadier general in Saddam’s army, has been told to stop work and has been put on leave.
In Dhi Qar Province, three high-ranking officers from the security forces have been sacked, a provincial council official said.
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