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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi exiles planning to vote in defiance of Zarqawi in Zarqa |
| 2005-01-26 |
| At first Talib al-Duleimi did not bother to register to vote in Iraq's elections. The longtime exile changed his mind after Iraq's most feared militant declared war on the balloting. "This is our country," said al-Duleimi, 38, a businessman who left Iraq after deserting the army in the 1991 Gulf War. "We should not listen to threats coming from this or that person. Iraq comes first." That's not an easy position to have in this Jordanian desert city, the hometown of Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's top operative in Iraq. Yet in interviews Monday with some of the 60,000 Iraqis living in Zarqa, many said they planned to vote in defiance of al-Zarqawi. In the United States, al-Zarqawi rivals Osama bin Laden as public enemy No. 1. But many people here -- not the least al-Zarqawi's family and friends -- take pride in his uncompromising and violent interpretation of Islam. They refer to him as "son of our town" or "our townman." Al-Zarqawi's nephew, Mohammed Fawzi, scoffed at Sunday's elections as an American ploy to bring Shiite Muslims to power. The Jordanian terror chief is a Sunni, the minority in Iraq that held sway under Saddam Hussein but who are likely to lose power to the Shiites in this weekend's vote. Attacks on Shiite Muslims in Iraq have increased in recent weeks as Sunni Arab insurgents try scare Shiites away from polls, the first independent ballot in Iraq in nearly 50 years. "Shiites are infidels and they should be burned in hell," said Fawzi, who like the many strictly observant Muslims here was bearded and wore a knee-length robe. "They are spies and stooges and their blood should be spilled." His comments echoed the latest threat attributed to al-Zarqawi, issued via an audiotape that aired Sunday. In the recording, a speaker who identifies himself as al-Zarqawi called those running in the elections "demi-idols" and vowed to disrupt the vote. The speaker railed against democracy for trying to supplant the rule of God with that of man and accused the United States of engineering the vote. Just how deep Fawzi's loyalty to his uncle lies is unclear. Fawzi, who was released last week after four months under arrest following his return from a trip to Iraq, refused to say whether he joined the insurgency while there. It was one of two trips he said he has made to Iraq since U.S.-led troops toppled Saddam in 2003. Most of the Iraqis in Zarqa live in low-income areas of the city, Jordan's second-largest with 800,000 people, including many Palestinian refugees. It is 17 miles northeast of the Jordanian capital of Amman. Nearly 180,000 Iraqis live in Jordan. While many came after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, others have been here for years. Al-Duleimi, for instance, is married to a Jordanian. Jordan has always been Iraq's main outlet to the world. Abu Anas, who became friends with al-Zarqawi in 1986 while the two were serving in the Jordanian army, praised him as "a symbol of all Jordanians." He said al-Zarqawi had a keen interest in weapons and combat techniques even then. When the hell was Zarqawi in the Jordanian army? He dropped out of high school to fight in Afghanistan! "You could realize right from the beginning that he was born to do that," said Abu Anas, who refused to give his full name. Shiites make up the majority in Iraq and are expected to fare well in the elections, raising concerns in Jordan, as in Iraq's other largely Sunni neighbors, that candidates could align themselves with Iran's hard-line Shiite Muslim theocracy. Jordan's King Abdullah II has accused Shiite-dominated Iran of trying to influence the elections in Iraq. Iran denies that. Al-Duleimi, himself Sunni, dismissed al-Zarqawi's attacks against Iraqi Shiites as bigotry. "I am a Sunni, but I see this as really abhorrent," he said. "I am worried to see some people want to kill this experience (election) even before it is born." Zuhair al-Samaraei, another Iraqi living in Zarqa, said many Iraqis have expressed similar defiance to al-Zarqawi's call for a boycott and have begun registering to vote. On Monday, several Iraqis registered their names in two balloting offices opened here by the International Organization of Migration, which handles Iraqis overseas balloting. But al-Samaraei said that some Iraqis are being intimidated and that election billboards are being torn down. Overall, turnout in registration for voting in Jordan and other countries neighboring Iraq has been low. Only about 16 percent of eligible Iraqi voters living outside their country had registered as of Saturday, the IOM said. In Jordan, more than 14,000 or an estimated 8 percent of 180,000 expatriates have registered so far, according to the group. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |