| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi vote count continues despite Zarqawi threats |
| 2005-02-02 |
| Iraq began compiling election results from around the country on Tuesday and eased security measures surrounding its historic poll despite al Qaeda's vow to pursue "holy war" after failing to deter millions from voting. Vote totals were being checked, then added up by computer after first tallies were completed by hand at polling stations nationwide and truckloads of ballots from Sunday's election were shipped under guard to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. The final results, expected to be released early next week, are certain to put Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority in power for the first time, marking a sea change in the nation's politics after eight decades of rule by minority Sunni Muslim Arabs. Although Iraqis braved insurgent threats to stream to the polls in many places, turnout appeared low in the Sunni heartland where insurgents are strongest -- highlighting the dangerous sectarian rifts facing a new government. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has urged rival ethnic and religious groups to unite after the country's first multi-party vote in nearly half a century. But al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, whose leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had threatened voters with death in a bid to wreck the election, said on Monday it would pursue its war against U.S.-led occupying forces and Iraqis working with them. "We in the al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq will continue the jihad until the banner of Islam flutters over Iraq," said a statement posted on an Islamist Web site. Despite the warning, authorities reopened Iraq's borders and flights resumed at Baghdad international airport. The closures had been part of a security blitz, including an election day ban on civilian traffic and extended night-time curfews, credited with preventing insurgents from making good on their threat to turn the poll into bloodbath. As the vote counting moved ahead, interim President Ghazi al-Yawar said some of the 170,000 foreign troops could begin leaving Iraq by the end of the year, a prediction already made by other Iraqi leaders as well as U.S. officials. But Yawar said any drawdown of foreign forces would depend on how fast Iraq's nascent security services could be built up. While the election day onslaught of suicide bombers and mortars was less bloody than expected, violence has persisted. Two Iraqis were killed by a roadside bomb on Tuesday in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil. Guerrillas also released a videotape on Monday purporting to show they had downed a British military plane with a missile near Baghdad in a crash that killed 10 people on Sunday -- Britain's highest death toll in a single incident in Iraq. The video issued by the 1920 Revolution Brigades, showed an explosion, then smoldering debris of what looked like a plane on the ground. Defense analysts said the wreckage on the video looked authentic but other parts were less convincing. British officials declined immediate comment. Late on Monday, U.S. guards shot dead four detainees during a riot at a military prison in southern Iraq. The riot raged for 45 minutes before the Americans opened fire to quell the disturbance, a military spokesman said. Leaders around the world hailed Iraq's election, regardless of whether they had supported or opposed the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. War opponents France, Germany and Russia all praised Iraqis' bravery in voting and, in a sign of warming transatlantic ties, pledged to back U.S. efforts to restore stability. In a televised speech, Allawi warned Iraqis violence had not ended just because the election had exceeded expectations and he urged rival factions to forge unity. Allawi, who could be reappointed, is keen to build popular support after a poll in which election officials estimate 8 million Iraqis voted, confounding predictions many would be scared away by the insurgents' threats. Shi'ites, about 60 percent of the population, are expected win the most seats in a 275-seat National Assembly, and officials in a broad Shi'ite-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, have claimed a degree of victory. Shi'ite leaders quickly declared they would bring the Sunni minority, dominant under Saddam, into the fold. President Bush encouraged Iraq's leaders to ensure the Sunnis are in the political process, and the White House brushed aside Democratic calls for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. A mounting U.S. death toll has increased public pressure for a clearer exit strategy. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Zarqawi is more finished than we realize. As long as he could terrorize the average Iraqi he could hide behind the people to orchestrate his madness. The open display of purple fingers was not just a message to the world, but a clear message to Mr. Z that the citizens of Iraq are not going to look the other way on his brutality anymore. You can pretend to be attacking Coalition Forces and Iraq Police but you cannot do so with eight million people standing in front of them. I suspect there are a lot of jhiadi running for the Syrian border right now. |
| Posted by: john 2005-02-02 10:56:57 AM |
| #1 Don't look like it's working, Zarko. Better go kidnap another doll. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-02-02 9:17:15 AM |