Vote next time, Sunni group urges

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A Sunni Arab group called on Sunnis on Monday to take part in future elections, and a leading Sunni hard-line cleric condemned kidnappings, as police searched for a top Egyptian diplomat seized over the weekend.

Sunnis boycotted the Jan. 30 vote, which went overwhelmingly to Shiites — an outcome that boosted the Sunni-led insurgency by convincing many Sunnis they would be marginalized in the new Iraq.

Political efforts to encourage Sunni extremists to join in the building of a new Iraq received a boost Monday when Dr. Adnan Al-Dulami, spokesman of the General Conference for Sunnis in Iraq, called on Sunnis "to organize themselves to take part in the coming elections and to start to register their names at the offices of the electoral commission."

He said Sunni clerics would soon issue a religious decree repeating the call. Clerics were at the forefront of boycott calls before the January election.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in insurgent attacks since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his new government, dominated by Shiites and Kurds, on April 28. Sunni Arabs make up the core of a violent insurgency.

In Cairo, the family of the kidnapped Egyptian envoy, Ihab al-Sherif, said they had received no message from the kidnappers. Witnesses said the kidnappers accused al-Sherif of being an "American spy" and shoved him into the trunk of a car after he stopped at a shop to buy a newspaper.

Egypt announced last month that it would become the first Arab country to post an ambassador to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"This kidnapping is an attempt to block the way for Arab diplomatic acceptance," said Dr. Abbas al-Bayati, a member of the parliament's foreign relations committee. Al-Bayati said the abduction was "intended to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world."

In what may be a hopeful sign, a hard-line Sunni Arab cleric, Harith al-Dhari, condemned all kidnappings, calling them "a bad phenomenon that emerged after the occupation of Iraq by America and its allies."

Al-Dhari heads the Association of Muslim Scholars, which is believed to have contacts with some insurgent groups. Sunni Arabs are estimated to make up about 20 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.