Sunnis resisting U.S. occupation form political front to take advantage of eventual pullout

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Sunni Insurgent Groups Form Political Front To Plan For U.S. Pullout

2007-07-18 19:39:01 (3 hours ago)


Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the U.S. occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told Britain's Guardian newspaper.

In their first interview with the western media since the U.S.-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against U.S. and Iraqi armed forces and police - made clear that they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaeda for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.

Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups - the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas - said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front within the next few weeks and appealed to Arab governments, other governments and the United Nations to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.

Abu Ahmad, spokesman for Iraqi Hamas said: "Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation. The U.S. made clear that it intended to stay for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year. "

Leaders of the three groups - who did not use their real names in the interview - said the new front, which brings together all the main Sunni-based armed organizations except al-Qaeda and the Ba'athists, has agreed the main planks of a joint political program, including a commitment to free Iraq from all foreign troops, rejection of any cooperation with parties involved in the political institutions set up under the occupation and a declaration that all decisions and agreements made by the U.S. occupation and Iraqi government are null and void.

The aim of the alliance - which includes a range of Islamist and nationalist-leaning groups and is currently planned to called the Political Office for the Iraqi Resistance - is to link up with other anti-occupation groups in Iraq to negotiate with the Americans in anticipation of an early U.S. withdrawal. The program envisages a temporary technocratic government to run the country during a transition period until free elections can be held.


Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna, a salafist (purist Islamic) group with a particularly violent reputation in Iraq, said his organisation had split over relations with al-Qaeda, whose members were mostly Iraqi, but its leaders largely foreigners.

"Resistance isn't just about killing Americans without aims or goals. Our people have come to hate al-Qaeda, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists. We are against indiscriminate killing, fighting should be concentrated only on the enemy," said Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna, a salafist (purist Islamic) group with a particularly violent reputation in Iraq. He added: "A great gap has opened up between Sunni and Shia under the occupation and al-Qaeda has contributed to that." Abu Ahmad, of Iraqi Hamas, asked: "Who benefits when there are bombs in markets? It is only the occupying forces and Iran."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2129675,00.html