Iraqi insurgents urge Sunnis to vote, warn Zarqawi

Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday's polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.

In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

"We want to see a nationalist government that will have a balance of interests. So our Sunni brothers will be safe when they vote," said Falluja resident Ali Mahmoud, a former army officer and rocket specialist under Saddam's Baath party. We have sent leaflets telling al Qaeda that they will face us if they attack voters."

Saddam loyalists have turned against Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant whose fighters travel to Iraq from across the Arab world to blow themselves up in a bid to spark sectarian civil war. "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation," said a Baathist insurgent leader who would give his name only as Abu Abdullah.

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=uri:2005-12-11T110045Z_01_FOR139522_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-ELECTION-INSURGENTS.xml&pageNumber=0&summit=

foreign fighters

In which case Iran moves in to take the oil fields of southern Iraq and the jihadis stay in Western Iraq, while the Sunni insurgents and Shia militias beat each other to a pulp in the middle of the country.

After all, "The shift is encouraging for Washington, which hopes to draw Sunni Arabs into peaceful politics in order to defuse the insurgency."

This could just be Bush friendly propaganda.