Three militant groups warned Iraqis that if they vote in Jan. 30 elections they risk being attacked.
BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 31, 2004 — Three militant groups released a statement saying democracy is un-Islamic and warned Iraqis that if they vote in Jan. 30 elections they risk being attacked.
The warning Thursday by the radical Ansar al-Sunnah Army and two other groups came after insurgents in the volatile city of Mosul launched a coordinated assault on a U.S. military outpost. The United States said 25 insurgents were believed slain and one American soldier was killed in the battle.
In the statement, the insurgent groups said that democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority of people agreed to it, the statement said.
"Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," said the statement. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God Muslims' doctrine."
Ansar al-Sunnah earlier posted a manifesto on its Web site saying democracy amounts to idolizing human beings. Thursday's joint statement also signed by the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujahedeen Army reiterated the threat that "anyone who accepts to take part in this dirty farce will not be safe."
Insurgents have intensified their strikes against the security forces of Iraq's U.S.-installed interim government as part of a continuing campaign to disrupt the elections for a constitutional assembly.
The statements by the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgent groups seemed aimed at countering Shiite leaders' claims that voting in the election is every Muslim's duty. Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population, hope to use the vote to wrest power from minority Sunnis, who were favored under Saddam Hussein.
Iraqis will elect a national assembly that is to write a new constitution.
On Friday, Adel al-Lami, a senior member of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, denied a report by the Al-Jazeera satellite channel that all 700 workers for the electoral commission in Mosul resigned because they had been threatened.
"The report is not true," al-Lami told The Associated Press. "Only two people resigned and they are the head of the (electoral) office in Mosul and an accountant" he said, adding that they stepped down "for personal reasons" and not because of threats.
Iraq's third-largest city has become more worrisome in the weeks since a U.S.-led invasion routed insurgents from their base in the Sunni-dominated city of Fallujah in mid-November.
Across Iraq, dozens of insurgents, Iraqi civilians and security forces have been killed in attacks over the last 48 hours, and the guerrillas have shown new ingenuity to inflict large casualties.
Mohammed Salah, a Cairo, Egypt-based expert on Islamic militancy, suggested that insurgents may be experimenting with new tactics to test the Americans after the guerrillas lost their stronghold in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Up to now, their chief weapons have been roadside bombs and suicide attacks.
"Since they are always pursued, they try to be creative," Salah said. "They have to be creative because they know repetitiveness is dangerous for them."
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