Iraq: Zarqawi tape criticizes Sunnis for voting in Iraqi elections

Cairo (dpa) - An audio recording purporting to come from terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and broadcast Monday by Arab news channel Al-Jazeera criticized Iraqi Sunnis for participating in December's parliamentary elections.

In the recording obtained from an Islamist website frequently used by extremists, the Jordanian head of the al-Qaeda network in Iraq focused his ire on the Islamic Party, a Sunni organization.

Sunni organizations urged Sunnis to vote in Iraq's December 15 elections, reversing the position they had taken ahead of the January 2005 elections when they called for a boycott.

In the recording, the authenticity of which could not be verified, al-Zarqawi said that voting could "ruin the Sunni people by making them focus on the earthly world and accept non-Islamic rule", when instead the party should have "urged people to Jihad (holy war)".

The Jordanian terrorist said that his organization could have disrupted elections but refrained from doing so because of "the possibility that average Sunnis confused by the matter" - that is Sunnis who cast votes - "might have been killed".

December's elections proceeded largely uninterrupted by terrorist attacks in contrast to those in January 2005 that saw dozens of Iraqis killed.

Al-Zarqawi criticized Arab states that promoted reconciliation among Iraqi religious and ethnic groups and Sunni participation in political life calling them "agents" of the United States.

That criticism targeted meetings held under the auspices of the Arab League in Cairo in November 2005.

The recording claimed that insurgents or mujahideen, as al-Zarqawi referred to them, had launched 800 attacks against the U.S. military since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and that they had killed or wounded 40,000 U.S. soldiers. dpa wt ch