An influential group of Sunni Muslim clerics today called on Iraqis to boycott the country's first free elections in decades in protest at a US-led offensive against the rebel city of Falluja.
"The clerics call on the honourable people of Iraq to boycott the coming elections that they want to hold on the remains of the dead and the blood of the wounded from Iraqi cities like Falluja and others," said Mr Harith al-Dhari, the secretary-general of Iraq's Muslim Clerics' Association.
The call by the association, which has helped negotiate ceasefires in Falluja in the past, could appeal to Sunnis at the forefront of a revolt against the US presence and undermine the credibility of the election due on January 27th.