Baghdad, Nov 12: Ten Iraqi insurgent groups have agreed to escalate attacks against US and Iraqi forces to derail the proposed US-Iraqi security agreement, an Internet monitoring service said on Tuesday.
The declaration against "the agreement of disgrace" was announced on November 04 in an audio speech by Sheik Abu Wael, a top leader of the Sunni militant Ansar al-Sunnah, who invited other insurgent groups to join, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
The security agreement would keep US soldiers in Iraq until 2012.
"Such kinds of agreements are not negated by mere statements of condemnation and denunciation," the Sheik said. "Rather, there is necessity for work, jihad, fighting those forces the enemy and those who are loyal to them to recant this agreement"
In his speech, the sheik invited over 15 factions to join. Most of them posted statements accepting the invitation, SITE said.
Those groups also include the Jihad and Change Front, Islamic Army in Iraq, Hamas-Iraq, and the Mujahedeen Army in Iraq, SITE said.
Ansar al-Sunnah was established in September 2003 and is believed to have links to al Qaeda in Iraq. It claimed responsibility for the December 21, 2004 suicide bombing of a US dining hall in Mosul which killed 24 people, including 14 US soldiers.
The Parliament must approve the security deal by the end of the year when the UN mandate authorising the US presence expires.
But the proposed agreement has drawn sharp criticism, especially within the majority Shi’ite community. Without an agreement or a new mandate, the US military would have to cease operations in Iraq.
‘End Bush's foreign policies’
Taliban insurgents battling the US-backed Afghan government urged Obama to change course in US foreign policy and withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, an Internet monitoring service said on Tuesday.
The message posted on the SITE Intelligence Group used by the Taliban claimed Obama's victory "reveals the collective willingness of American people not to continue the current despicable and anti-human wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”.
The authors claimed that Obama had promised to end Bush's policies pledging to "recover the dwindling American economy and find a niche in the comity of nations."
But while Obama has said he intends to draw down US troops levels in Iraq, he has repeatedly called for an increase in troops in Afghanistan to combat a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The President-elect has also backed US military strikes in the lawless and rugged border region of Pakistan, which the US says has become a safe haven for extremists carrying out attacks in Afghanistan.
In Washington, the Obama transition team declined to comment.
The Taliban message, the authenticity of which couldn't immediately be determined, said if the Democrats continued in the steps of Bush, "then it is clear that the fate of the Democrats will be even more shameful and despicable than the Republicans."
Three days after the election, two Iraqi insurgent groups posted separate Internet messages reported by SITE calling on Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, self-styled head of the al Qaeda front group Islamic State of Iraq, said, "You do not interfere in the affairs of our countries. We, in turn, will not prevent commerce with you, whether it is in oil or otherwise."
Bureau Report