Bin Laden marks voters as ‘infidels’

BAGHDAD — A purported new message from Osama bin Laden yesterday condemned all Iraqis who cast ballots in upcoming elections as “infidels,” and it endorsed Abu Musab Zarqawi, the terrorist leader who is attempting to halt the Jan. 30 vote.

Hours before portions of the audiotape aired on the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera, suicide terrorists bombed the Baghdad home of a top Shi’ite political leader, and Iraq’s main Sunni political group said it would boycott the elections.

Al Jazeera said the speaker repeated a call from an earlier tape by bin Laden for attacks on oil installations.

On Iraq’s upcoming elections, it said:

“The constitution imposed by the American occupier Bremer is blasphemous … and anyone who takes part in this election consciously and willingly is an infidel.”

L. Paul Bremer directed the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which drafted a temporary constitution before handing power to the present interim Iraqi government in June.

Before the new tape surfaced, a suicide car bomber killed 15 persons while attacking the home of Abdul Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

Mr. Hakim remained inside the house through the bombing and was not hurt.

“This is nothing new,” said Saad Qindeel, a Hakim confidant and a top official in SCIRI. “This was a criminal act by former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime, with the help of outside terrorists.”

Mr. Hakim heads the 228-candidate list of the United Iraqi Alliance, which includes SCIRI, other parties and people from all Iraqi ethnic and religious groups but is dominated by Shi’ites, who account for about 60 percent of the country’s population.

Backed by Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the coalition is widely expected to dominate the postelection assembly and play a key role in formulating a permanent constitution.

Just hours after the blast, the leader of a moderate Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Islamic Party, announced that the group had reversed its earlier decision to take part in the Jan. 30 elections.

“The security situation keeps going from bad to worse and has to be dealt with,” said party leader Mohsen Abdel-Hamid.

U.S. and Iraqi officials hope nationwide democratic elections to create a 275-seat national assembly and a new government will cool the country’s simmering political passions and stanch a violent rebellion by Sunni Arabs, who resent their diminished status after last year’s American-led invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A key leader of the Sunni insurgency, the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, is behind numerous suicide bombings and hostage beheadings. Last month, he declared his allegiance to bin Laden and changed the name of his group to al Qaeda in Iraq.

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