IRAQ: Violence continues in Ramadi, Iraqi clerics call for Iraqi people to take part in parliamentary elections

Record ID: 358114

  • Title: IRAQ: Violence continues in Ramadi, Iraqi clerics call for Iraqi people to take part in parliamentary elections
  • Date: 12th December 2005
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) SHEIKH ALI KHUDEIR AL-ZUBAIDI, A SUNNI CLERIC SAYING: "The (participation in the elections) and giving your vote is a duty that you have to fulfill in front of God and if you did not participate and give your vote, you are going to give a chance to others who may not serve this country."
  • Embargoed: 27th December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA7M8ZS8Z7E0IIFTHXKDH1EB9DD
  • Story Text: A U.S. army truck caught fire after a makeshift bomb struck a convoy in central of the restive city of Ramadi on Friday (December 9), the military said in a statement. They said that there were no serious injuries from the attack.
    Witnesses believe that there were casualties among the US forces. "When I arrived early in the morning (to this area) I saw a blast of a roadside bomb on this US military vehicle, which was carried soldiers. They all were killed in the blast. No one survived. Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad remains a base for rebels opposed to Iraq's government and their U.S. allies despite the military operations. In Baghdad, a Sunni cleric called for Iraqis to take part in the coming parliamentary elections that will take place in December 15, considering the participation as a national duty.
    Following Friday prayer in the Umm al-Qurra mosque, the headquarters of the Muslim Clerics Association, Sheikh Ali Khudeir al-Zubaidi said, "The (participation in the elections) and giving your vote is a duty that you have to fulfill in front of God and if you did not participate and give your vote, you are going to give a chance to others who may not serve this country," he added. Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, once strong under Saddam Hussein, is doing everything it can to make sure it gets its tactics right.
    At the last election in January, when a 10-month interim government was elected, Sunni Arabs, who make up about a fifth of the population, either supported their leaders' call for a boycott or were too scared by insurgent threats to vote.
    The result was a disaster for the community. Sunnis, who formed the backbone of the ruling classes under Saddam and for decades before that, were left with just a handful of seats -- 17 -- in the 275-member parliament. By population they might have expected to get 50 or more. For his part, Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Salah Al-Ubaidi stressed on the necessity of the Charter of National Honour that number of Shi'ite political parties signed with the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying that this charter will reserve the rights of Iraqis. Sheikh Salah al-Ubaidi said after Friday prayer in the poor Shi'ite neighbourhood of Sadr city that the charter of national honour will serve the interests of Iraq. "(We are stressing on )the Charter of National Honour, which sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr prepared, formed and called for number of religious and political forces to be part of it," al-Ubaidi said. Earlier, the radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's party has signed an accord with the wider Shi'ite alliance of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari to strengthen the position of the Shi'ite political parties in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
    With the rapid approach of the December 15 elections for Iraq's first full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, electoral campaigning is in full swing in all of Iraq's 18 provinces. Moqtada al-Sadr's party joined some 20 other Shi'ite political groups in signing the Charter of National Honour, designed to bring Shi'ite political might under one banner in preparation for the election. The Charter of National Honour calls for the exit of US troops from Iraq, the strengthening of Iraqi security institutions and military forces, the rejection of normalising relations with Israel, supporting the resistance to the US-led occupation, safeguarding the unity of Iraq, the release of all political detainees in Iraqi and US prisons and fighting unemployment and corruption.
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