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Islamic extremists: Iraqi vote 'satanic'
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-13 08:46 A leaflet that appeared Monday in the Baghdad Sunni stronghold of Azamiyah
acknowledged that Sunni Arabs could make gains in the election but that
"fighting will continue with the infidels and their followers."
The statement was unsigned but was written in a style favored by Islamic
extremists.
U.S. officials hope for a large turnout among the disaffected Sunni Arab
minority, a development which could produce a government capable of winning the
trust of the Sunnis and defusing the insurgency. That would enable U.S. and
other foreign troops to begin heading home next year.
"Many Sunnis are campaigning vigorously for office this time around," Bush
said. "Many Sunni parties that opposed the constitution have registered to
compete in this week's vote."
In the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, hooded men carrying assault
rifles erected campaign posters.
The men, who claimed to be insurgents, raised a large banner supporting a
Sunni Arab candidate. Standing next to them was a man, wearing no mask and
carrying no weapon, holding up a poster for other Sunni candidates.
"Elect them for the sake of defending the rights of the Iraqi population,"
the first banner said. "They have pure hands," said the second.
In the first day of early voting, about 250,000 Iraqis 錕斤拷 soldiers, police,
hospital patients and prisoners 錕斤拷 cast ballots, according to election official
Abdul-Hussein Hendawi. Iraqi television aired footage showing inmates in orange
jumpsuits depositing their ballots in jailhouse boxes.
The U.S.-led multinational force said 90 percent of all eligible detainees
held in facilities under its control participated in the vote. It did not
release the number represented by that percentage. Suspected insurgents held in
detention but not convicted were eligible to vote, officials said.
Deposed leader Saddam Hussein, who is jailed and facing trial for the deaths
of more than 140 Shiites in 1982, could also vote, but it was not know if he
did.
Abroad, an estimated 1.5 million expatriate Iraqis will begin voting Tuesday
over a two-day period in polling centers in 15 countries including the United
States.
Most of the 15 million registered voters go to the polls Thursday.
Sunni Arab politicians have promised an end to what they term abuse at the
hands of the Shiite-dominated security services. As voting began, the Human
Rights Ministry and the U.S. military said that 13 prisoners were hospitalized
after being found at an overcrowded prison run by the Shiite-led Interior
Ministry.
Later Monday, Al-Jazeera television aired a video allegedly showing abuse at
another Interior Ministry facility in western Baghdad. The footage showed dozens
of men, many with welts and bruises. The station did not say how it obtained the
footage or when the alleged incidents took place.
Bush said Iraqi prisoners held in secret detention centers apparently were
beaten and tortured.
"This conduct is unacceptable," Bush said in the Philadelphia speech. "Those
who committed these crimes must be held to account."
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, ordered an investigation into
what he described as an "unhealthy phenomenon." A similar case also surfaced
last month.
"I will not allow such treatment of any prisoner," al-Jaafari said during a
news conference.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have expected an upsurge in insurgent violence as
the election approaches.
A U.S. soldier was killed Monday in a bombing in Baghdad, and another
American soldier attached to the Marines died the day before in a suicide
bombing west of the capital near the city of Ramadi, the U.S. command said.
The deaths brought to at least 2,144 the number of U.S. military members
killed in Iraq since the war began in 2003, according to an Associated Press
count.
Most Iraqis disapprove of the presence of U.S. forces in their country, yet
they are optimistic about Iraq's future and their own personal lives, according
to a new poll.
More than two-thirds of those surveyed oppose the presence of troops from the
United States and its coalition partners and less than half, 44 percent, say
their country is better off now than it was before the war, according to an ABC
News poll conducted with Time magazine and other media partners.
Three-quarters say they are confident about the parliamentary elections, and
more than two-thirds expect things in their country to get better in the coming
months. But only a third in the Sunni regions were optimistic about their
country's future.
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