Kofi Annan, the UN General secretary warned an assault on Falluja could further anger Iraqis and undermine planned January elections. Although it is too early to see if that will happen, the omens are not good. Insurgency has erupted across the Sunni Triangle and there are now talks of a boycott of the January elections.
Hundreds of armed men have entered Ramadi, taking over government buildings, while in Baquba, north of Baghdad, 45 people, including 25 policemen were killed in a series of attacks. Eleven people died in bombings in Baghdad, and an attack on a National Guard headquarters in Kirkuk killed three people.
There was also political unravelling, with one of the main Sunni groups, the Iraqi Islamic Party, resigning from the Iraqi government in protest at the assault. "The American attack on our people in Fallujah has led and will lead to more killings and genocide without mercy from the Americans," said its leader, Mohsen Abdel Hamid. The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group of Sunni clerics, called for a boycott of next January's planned elections which were, it said, being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah and the blood of the wounded".
So what is gained by an assault on Fallujah? What appears to have happened is hundreds more civilian casualties and the escalation of dissent and resistance. Can someone tell us, where is the sense in all that?
A BBC report says, " If it turns out to be a blood bath, the warning from the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that it might jeopardise the very political process it is designed to support, could come true. " And that may be true - see full report..
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