Sunnis set out to sabotage draft plan for Iraq

[ECH1969]

Iraq's Sunnis displayed a new found enthusiasm for politics yesterday as thousands who boycotted January's election queued to register to vote.

With Shia and Kurdish delegates threatening to force the draft through parliament over Sunni protests, taking part in this October's constitutional referendum is now the Sunnis' best hope of killing the document.

In Samarra, an insurgent centre 60 miles north of Baghdad, lines stretched down the road as local Sunnis appeared to accept that their refusal to vote in January had led to them being marginalised in parliament. "We came here to register our names as we should not commit a mistake as we did before," Hameed Hassan said as he waited to add his name to the list.

One potent threat now facing the growing Sunni campaign to defeat the document at the ballot box comes from Abu Musab Zarqawi, the fundamentalist Sunni terrorist responsible for many of the worst outrages committed in Iraq in the past two years. He and other leading groups have repeatedly threatened to kill any Sunnis participating in the political process and promised to bomb polling booths.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/24/wirq24.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/24/ixportal.html

[seriousstan]

1. The Sunni's are thinking about voting.....about time. The screwed

themselves the first time. No matter how this turns out, they need a person in the game.

[Teaser]

5. This is *not* good news

If the Sunnis scuttle the constitution, the Kurds and Shi'ah will just walk away from Iraq, leaving the Sunnis with sand. Think they won't blow shit up over that?

And if they fail, what have they got left but to fight?

The Shi'ah and Kurds need to climb down from federalism a good bit if they want to avoid civil war. The thing is, I'm not sure they do.

[damntexdem]

9. The only reason for the Kurds to stick with 'federalism' is ...

that it might keep Turkey from invading Iraqi Kurdistan. They have no other horse in the Iraqi race than that. Why should they give up the autonomy they have fought hundreds of years, and more intensely for decades, to win?

[Mikimouse]

2. Fundamentalist and Sunni in the same sentence? Interesting

I always thought that the Sunnis were more liberal? This statement couldn't be biased could it:eyes: ? Isn't the Telegraph a Murdoch paper?

[ECH1969]

3. I don't know

Are there fundamentalist Sunnis?

[Euphen]

4. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are both Sunni. n/t

[Mikimouse]

7. I don't know about the Taliban, but Osama bin Laden...

is a Wahabbi islamic, the most fundamentalist of all the islamic sects. Wahabbi is the predominant sect in Saudi Arabia. Hussein was/is a Sunni and was hated by bin Laden because of his secular beliefs.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Bin Laden is a Sunni Muslim

Wahabbism is a sub-set of Sunnism, in the same way SPPX is a sub-set of Catholicism.

[Mikimouse]

13. OK, thanks for the info.

[daleo]

14. Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians are both sub-sets of Protestantism

I think you have to be pretty careful when it comes to how religious groups evolved from common ancestors.

[damntexdem]

10. Iraqi Sunnis have tended to be secular.

But there are a great many factions.

[IndianaGreen]

15. That's like comparing Pat Robertson to Desmond Tutu

Your analogy is seriously flawed!

[Teaser]

6. No...

The Sunni have their fundamentalists (Wahabbists and Salafi) and the Shi'ah have theirs (Iran).

[Mikimouse]

8. Thanks, I will have to read some more to understand all of the nuances

:shrug:

[bpilgrim]

12. thats a pretty subtle headline

:crazy:

peace