The summiteers said the US is committing “genocide” in Fallujah.

By Mazen Ghazi, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, November 17 (IslamOnline.net) – In what could cost the new Iraqi government its necessary legitimacy to win the hearts and minds of the people, 47 Sunni, Shiite, Turkoman and Christian bodies have so far declared their boycott for the general election slated for early next year, due to the grisly US attacks in Fallujah.

Concluding a one-day conference in the headquarters of the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) in Baghdad’s Um Al-Qora mosque, a plethora of bodies representing Iraq’s religious mosaic agreed that the open-ended Fallujah offensive was an obstacle to an effective political participation.

They further said that the outcome of the election is settled in advance for the “collaborators” with the US occupation troops.

The conference is organized by the Iraqi National Founding Conference, a coalition of Sunni, Shiite and independent Iraqi figures.

Chief among those who inked the communiqué are the AMS, Sheikh Jawad Al-Khalsi, the secular National Arab Current, the Iraqi-Turkoman Front, the Democratic Christian Party and the communist People’s Union party.

Voter registration is already under way, but it's been overshadowed by the US-led Fallujah onslaught, bombings and kidnappings. Registration runs till December 15.

The interim Iraqi government said it has so far verified 63 parties and movements out of 90 applicants.

The January vote will also elect a 275-seat assembly, whose primary task will be to draft a permanent constitution for Iraq.

Under Iraq's election laws, there will be no electoral boundaries for the January vote, with the whole country treated as a single constituency. Political parties will contest the vote by slates of candidates.

“Imposed”

Fallujah witnesses wide-scale destruction

The communiqué, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net, said the January election does not speak for the Iraqi people as long as it is “imposed” by the US-backed interim government and rejected by a clear majority of political and religious powers.

The summiteers warned that the current wave of massive US raids across Iraq threatened the territorial integrity of the country and would virtually prove as futile the outcome of the upcoming election.

“The US raids against An-Najaf, Karbala, Samarra, Mosul, Baghdad and more recently Fallujah represent an obstacle to the political participation in the occupied country,” read the final statement.

The conference further called the US offensive into Fallujah a “genocide”.

Some 10,000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2,000 Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub on November 8, capping long nights of massive US raids.

The successive raids have caused massive damage in the city, with dead bodies still littering the streets.

The current offensive looked set to come at a heavy price for the US military as at least 39 American troops have been killed and up to 250 others evacuated to the US military hospital in the German city of Landstuhl so far, according to US military estimates.

The US military also said about 1,200 resistance fighters have been killed in the bloody incursion.