Sunni groups join forces to vie in Iraq elections

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Three Sunni Arab groups joined forces Wednesday to field candidates in December's elections provided for under the newly ratified constitution that many Sunnis opposed. But a group of hard-line Sunni clerics denounced the constitution and said they will not join the political process.

Those contradictory statements signaled confusion within the minority Sunni Arab community, which forms the core of the insurgency, over how to go forward after it failed to block ratification of the new constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum.

Leaders of the three Sunni groups — the General Conference for the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue — announced they would field a joint slate of candidates in the Dec. 15 balloting and work together in the new parliament to promote Sunni interests.

"This alliance aims to provide Iraqis with a national slate for the elections," Ayad al-Samarraie, a senior official of the Iraqi Islamic Party, told reporters.

He said the largely Sunni alliance will include some Shiites in southern provinces and that its agenda will include a call for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraq — if progress can be made in building national institutions.

The U.S. military death toll in the conflict rose to 2,001 with the death of an American soldier in a vehicle accident near Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.

U.S. officials see Sunni Arab participation as a hopeful sign that more and more members of the community will forsake the insurgency, enabling the United States and its allies to begin drawing down their forces next year.

Sunni Arabs largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election, enabling the Shiites and Kurds to win an overwhelming majority in parliament and shape the constitution. Many Sunni Arabs voted against the charter in October because they feared it could lead to the breakup of the country and favored rival Shiites and Kurds.

Despite the Sunni groups' announcement, an influential group of hardline Sunni Arab clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, declared Wednesday that it would not join the political process and denounced the constitution. The association is believed to have links to some insurgent groups and was at the forefront of the January boycott.

"The whole project was American," association spokesman Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi said of the constitution. "We already declared that the constitution will be only benefit the occupation and the other forces who collaborated."