[Al Arabiya Latest] The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, threatened in an audio recording late on Friday to stop Iraqi parliamentary elections by "military means," the SITE monitoring service said.SITE, which monitors Islamist websites, said Baghdadi condemned the March 7 elections as a political crime plotted by Shiites.
"(We) have decided to prevent the elections by all legitimate means possible, primarily by military means," the service quoted him as saying.
| Except that military means are not legitimate. Clearly Mr. Abu Omar hasn't noticed Iraqis like voting in elections, and after the last few years they aren't likely to give it up for the likes of him and his little henchmen. |
The election is seen by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete U.S. military withdrawal by the end of 2011.
| In other words, Mr. Abu Omar, get too violent and the American troops will stay. Lay low, and they'll leave. Of course, that means you'll have lost face, but surely you can bring the people round with a few well placed bombs in bazaars... or not -- y'all don't seem as scary as the ibn Saddam Hussein al Tikriti brothers, somehow. |
Around 19 million people have the right to vote, including 1.4 million Iraqi citizens now living abroad in 16 countries, according to election organizers.