The onslaught on Falluja is dividing Iraqis. Ahmed Mukhtar reports from Baghdad While Arab and international public opinion was fully diverted by the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, different Iraqi ethnic groups were bickering over the Falluja crisis. The assault on the rebel city Falluja appears to have widened the gap between Iraqi groups and jeopardised the elections supposed to be held at the end of next January. US forces backed by Iraqi troops pushed into the heart of Falluja on Tuesday 9 November, taking a grip on Iraq's most rebellious city after a day of street-to-street combat with insurgents. As a result, the Muslim Clerics Association (MCA), widely considered the most influential Sunni group in Iraq with 3,000 cleric members, called for a nationwide election boycott in protest. The call by the MCA, which in the past had helped negotiate ceasefires in Falluja , could appeal to the Sunnis who are currently at the forefront of a revolt against the US occupation in Iraq, and thus undermine the credibility of the elections due to be held on 27 January. "The clerics call on the honourable people of Iraq to boycott the coming election that they want to hold on the remains of the dead and the blood of the wounded from Iraqi cities like Falluja and others," said Harith Al-Dhari, the MCA's top official. "[The election] is intended to achieve the aims of the occupying authority in Iraq and the authorities cooperating with them." The Islamic Party, the main Sunni political party in Iyad Allawi's interim government, also said it was withdrawing its support for the government. "The party cannot tolerate the massacre taking place in Falluja," said Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the Islamic Party. However, the party's only minister in the cabinet, Minister of Industry Hashim Al-Hassani, did not resign from office. Nor did the party's four members in the interim parliament withdraw from their posts. Al-Hassani ruled out any split inside the party and justified his decision to stay. "I felt that I can do something for Falluja and other cities, as I am inside the cabinet," he said. "The big issue is about Iraq -- not Falluja or Najaf, but the unity of the Iraqi people. There were conspiracies against Iraq which could have undermined the Iraqi institutions, yet the presence of honest national members was able to thwart them." In clear contrast with his party's protest at the assault on Falluja, Al-Hassani was far more cautious in his evaluation of the situation there. "The problem of Falluja stems from foreign agendas. Foreigners have been arrested in Falluja, including ten Iranians. These foreign agendas are not in the interest of the Iraqis," he argued. On Friday, Farid Ayar, spokesman of the UN-appointed Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), announced that 43 out of 54 political entities -- including the Islamic party -- had been accepted to register for the elections. The sharpest Sunni criticism came last week from Sheikh Mahdi Al-Sumaidaei, head of the Supreme Association for Guidance (irshad) and Daawa, a conservative Sunni organisation, who accused interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government of "launching a war on Sunnis". Al-Sumaidaei blamed the most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, for not condemning the Falluja attack. "We did not hear from them at all," Al-Sumaidaei said. "I assume they are either satisfied [with the assault] or they are afraid. When there were attacks on Shia cities, the Sunni clerics in Iraq immediately condemned them. What about the Shias now?" On 11 November, Al-Sumaidaei urged Sunnis to launch a civil disobedience campaign to protest the assault on Falluja. Hours later, Iraqi security forces raided his Ibn Taymiya (formerly Um Al-Tuboul) mosque which is a major landmark in western Baghdad, seizing weapons and arresting the cleric along with about two dozens of his supporters. American and Iraqi forces accused Al-Sumaidaei and more than a dozen of his followers of hiding weapons in the mosque, officials said. Al-Sumaidaei had already been arrested by the Americans last winter, and was released several months ago. The mosque is the largest religious sanctuary in the capital for devotees of the Salafiya branch of Sunni Islam. For many Sunni Arabs, both here in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, Falluja has become the symbol of Iraqi resistance against the US occupation. But many Shias and Kurds -- at least on the official level -- appear less sympathetic. During a sermon Friday in Najaf, Sadruddin Al- Qabanji of the Shia Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said curbing terrorism in Falluja was "necessary to protect Iraqis". He warned that terrorists were targeting Shias in several Iraqi towns. Ahmed Al-Safi, a cleric representing Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, made a lukewarm condemnation of the invasion of Falluja during Friday prayers in Karbala. The ayatollah advocated following "a peaceful means of settling the security situation and restoring peace in the restive cities". This view was shared by Ayatollah Hadi Al-Moderassi, a prominent Shia scholar who called for establishing national reconciliation before plunging into elections. "Problems cannot be solved by canons only, but by negotiations and promoting a healthy context," he argued in a statement. Kurdish politicians were less shy about the situation in Falluja. Embittered by the atrocities of the former regime which was mainly composed of members of the Sunni Arab minority, Kurds now consider the assault on Falluja necessary. Nawshirwan Mustafa, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said Falluja was a "hub of terrorists", and his only criticism of the US-led attack was that it did not happen sooner. Former Kurdish guerrillas, now serving in the Iraqi National Guard, have provided reinforcements to battle Arab rebels in the northern city of Mosul during the attack on Falluja. Allawi, a secular Shia, defended his decision to order the assault on Falluja, saying it was necessary to bring enough stability for national elections to be held by 31 January. Allawi brushed aside suggestions the offensive would create a backlash among the Sunni minority. "There is no problem of Sunnis or Shias," he said. "This is all Iraqis against the terrorists. We are going to keep on breaking their backs everywhere in Iraq. We are not going to allow them to win." Iraq's government has vowed to retake all rebel-held areas ahead of the poll as relentless bombings and kidnappings raise fears Iraqis in Falluja and other parts of the central Sunni heartland would be unable to vote. If a widespread Sunni Arab boycott of the elections were to ensue, it could jeopardise the legitimacy of the vote. Sunni Arabs make up a fifth of the Iraqi population, and are still embittered at having been ousted from power during the initial American invasion.
