Hostile Forces in Iraq Make Voting Unsafe in Some Areas
Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi acknowledged that some areas of Iraq likely would be too unsafe to participate in the landmark balloting for a constitutional assembly
Some areas of Iraq will probably be too unsafe to take part in the Jan. 30 elections, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday in his first acknowledgment of limited voting.
In a news conference, Allawi acknowledged that some areas of Iraq likely would be too unsafe to participate in the landmark balloting for a constitutional assembly, the Associated Press reported. According to AP, the country's volatile Anbar province—west of Baghdad—and areas in the north around Mosul have seen little preparation for the vote.
"Hostile forces are trying to hamper this event and to inflict damage and harm on the march and the guarantee for the participation of all in the elections," Allawi said. "Certainly, there will be some pockets that will not be able to participate in the elections for these reasons, but we think that it will not widespread."
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The Jan. 30 national elections, Iraq’s first, will determine a 275-member assembly that will appoint a government and draft a constitution. Many Christians are hoping that Iraq will become a democratic and free secular state. However, now as Christians are only a sliver of Iraq's population after a string of church bombings in recent months prompted Christians to flee the country, church leaders fear the ongoing exodus could make it difficult for Iraq to develop into a nation that values religious pluralism and tolerance.
“That’s really the goal of the terrorists—to drive out the Christian community which numbers about 500-thousand from Iraq, so that when they’re making a new government, they will not have any Christians to share the government with or give religious freedom,” said Jerry Dykstra of U.S.-based Open Doors a few weeks after the United States formally handed sovereignty to Iraqi officials on June 28.
After the Aug. 1 church bombings that hit five churches in Baghdad and Mosul, one Southern Baptist worker told the Baptist Press News Agency that extremists who had participated in the attack, targeted the congregations as symbols of a free Iraq and not specifically because they were Christian. “[The Jihadists] are temporarily united against anyone who opposes their radical Islamic-republic views. … Members of the Christian minority are being included in the anarchists’ attack against an emerging pluralistic society,” he said.
The worker added that the creation of an Iraqi government and steps being taken toward democracy have raised the stakes for factions who want to control the country and its vast oil wealth.
“Jihadists see the present situation as an opportunity to assert universal control over Iraq, something they could never have dreamed of achieving under Saddam Hussein,” he added. “This group is opposed to every form of authority and religion but their own narrow band of Islamic belief.”
The worker also pointed out that the Jihadists not only attacked Christian churches, but also Islamic mosques. "The aim of the church bombings is strictly political, not religious, and like similar bombings that targeted mosques, they are meant to instigate sectarian and confessional strife among the one Iraqi people," he said.
Sources say Prime Minister Allawi expects an escalation of attacks by Iraqi fighters in Iraq before and after the Jan. 30 elections. During the news conference on Tuesday, Allawi promised to increase the size of the army in the face of the rampant insurgency, whose latest victims included 13 Iraqis killed by two bombings.
