Three Sunni election workers were kidnapped while tacking up voting posters in the northern city of Mosul and then killed in front of a crowded mosque on Friday, the latest in a series of violent incidents exposing the rift that has opened up among Iraq's Sunnis over whether to take part in the coming elections.
The attack was the second in as many days against Sunnis trying to join in the country's democratic process. That is supposed to culminate in a nationwide referendum on a constitution in October and elections in December.
On Thursday, gunmen stormed the Great Mosque in Ramadi, a largely Sunni city about 120km from Baghdad, where local leaders were discussing the constitution. The gunmen opened fire and wounded three men.
PHOTO: EPA
The attacks are unfolding here as more and more Sunni leaders are calling on their followers to take part in the nascent democratic process. One Sunni cleric on Friday even issued a fatwa, or holy writ, obliging Muslims to vote.
The calls for Sunnis to take part come in marked contrast to the situation January, when Sunnis largely boycotted nationwide elections.
The three Sunnis killed Friday were members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a predominantly Sunni political group that boycotted the elections in January.
Witnesses said the three election workers, including Faris Yunis Abdullah, a senior party official, were posting placards in Yarmuk, a Sunni neighborhood in western Mosul, when they were descended upon by five cars filled with masked gunmen. The placards encouraged Iraqis to vote in the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution.
The kidnappers took Abdullah and the two others to the Arab enclave of Al Noor east of the city, where they pulled them from one of the cars and killed them before a throng of onlookers who were gathering for Friday Prayers at Al Noor Mosque. Witnesses said the gunmen had dumped the election signs onto the bodies and then added a placard of their own that read, "These are the apostates who advocated for the election."
The attacks in Mosul and Ramadi highlighted the split that has opened among Iraq's Sunni's since nationwide elections in January drew huge turnouts from Iraq's other main groups, the Shiites and the Kurds. The Sunni boycott raised questions about the legitimacy of the political process, but it also put pressure on the Sunnis to get involved.
Since January, more and more Sunni leaders have stepped forward to persuade their people to take part. Though the Iraqi Islamic Party, whose members were killed, boycotted the January elections, its leaders have come out strongly since then for the democratic process. Two days ago, Islamic Party leaders published a list of demands that they want in the constitution.
The Islamic Party chiefs are among many Sunni leaders who are urging participation in the political process, even as insurgents are killing and threatening to kill anyone who does so.
Earlier this month, al-Qaeda of Iraq declared in an Internet posting that "the constitution is the faith of the disbelievers" and threatened to kill anyone who helped write it. In another warning issued earlier this week, al-Qaeda threatened to kill any Muslim cleric who encouraged Iraqis to take part in the referendum or the election.
The insurgents have made good on their threats. Last month, two Iraqi Sunnis involved in drafting the constitution, Mejbil al-Sheik Isa and Damin al-Obeidi, were killed in Baghdad.
Despite the threats, Sunni leaders are issuing remarkable calls to their people to vote. In Fallujah, a predominantly Sunni city 35 miles west of Baghdad, Sheik Hamza Abbas of Al Wahda Mosque issued a fatwa that obliges all Muslims to take part in the referendum on the constitution and the elections.
"It is our duty to participate in the political process," Abbas said Friday. "Anyone who boycotts the election will be guilty in front of God and all Muslims."
For seven months last year, Fallujah was under the control of insurgents and Muslim extremists, and was ruled by a group of clerics and guerrilla leaders called the Council of Holy Warriors. In November, the U.S. military invaded the city and restored the Iraqi government's control.
A call similar to Abbas' went forth Friday from Um al Qura Mosque in Baghdad, a conservative Sunni mosque in western Baghdad, where some of the clerics have been detained under suspicion that they conspire with insurgents. At Friday prayers, Sheik Ali Khudr told his followers to join in the political process, if only to end the domination of Iraq by foreigners.
"Every Iraqi should vote and register his name in polling centers to say yes or no to the constitution," Khudr said. "If you don't vote, then someone else will end up controlling you."
Friday's attack in Mosul came as Iraqi leaders in Baghdad reached tentative agreement on the role of Islam in the state, Iraqi leaders said. Under the deal, the constitution would designate Islam as "a main source of legislation," and would prohibit the passing of any legislation that contradicted Islam's "fixed principles."
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