| Could also be titled "Sunni Leaders Squeal Like Piggies" |
Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders warned yesterday that military and police crackdowns were alienating their minority community in the run-up to December elections for a new parliament. âLarge-scale military operations are making the life of local people hell, with disastrous consequences that have led to the deaths of civilians, destruction and arrests,â said a statement from the Islamic Party, a leading Sunni faction. âThe party condemns these military operations and calls for their immediate halt in all provinces, especially Al-Anbar and Diyala,â it said, referring to provinces west and northeast of Baghdad.Such operations are âlikely to undermine both the political process in these provinces and the security situationâ in the run-up to the Dec. 15 elections, it added. âThe goal of these operations is to exclude Sunni Arabs from participatingâ in the elections, charged another Sunni group, the General Conference of the Iraqi People. The government must âhalt its military operationsâ and release political and religious leaders arrested in Diyala, it added. Iraqi security forces on Saturday arrested more than 350 people in Baquba, the capital of ethnically mixed Diyala province, including members of the Islamic Party. US and Iraqi troops have also been involved in major operations in Al-Anbar province, near the Syrian border, sweeping through several towns whose residents fled the offensives.