DUBAI, Dec 28 (AFP) - A call by Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden for a boycott of next month's landmark elections in Iraq risks fuelling more violence in the war-torn country which is already engulfed in bloodshed, analysts said Tuesday.
"Anyone who willingly takes part in these elections ... will be an infidel," said the voice in an audiotape attributed to bin Laden and aired Monday by Al-Jazeera television.
The terror chief also anointed Iraq's most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as leader of "the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the land of two rivers (Iraq)" and said he must be obeyed.
"Bin Laden's call assumes the nature of a fatwa (religious edict), authorising the spilling of anyone's blood, candidate or voter, participating in the ballot," said Abdelbari Atwan, chief editor of London's Arab-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
"In designating Zarqawi emir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden, for the first time, implicitly approves all operations attributed to Zarqawi's group, including the kidnapping and beheading of many hostages," notably Westerners, he told AFP.
"His call counters those (comments) attributed to the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who considers anyone who boycotts the elections an infidel," added Atwan, who is expecting "a bloodbath" in Iraq.
Sistani has given his official endorsement to the Unified Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite political parties running in the January 30 elections, and called on Shiites, who were long oppressed by the Sunni minority, to participate en masse in the vote.
Shiites are expected to win the majority of seats in the 275-member parliament which will write the country's permanent constitution, which will go before a national referendum next fall.
According to Yasser al-Sirri, the head of the London-based Islamic Observatory Centre for Human Rights, "bin Laden's call will give fresh momentum to armed groups which will put on a spurt in their operations in Iraq, at Zarqawi's order."
He said the anointing of Zarqawi means there is now a clear leader and banner under which insurgents in Iraq can unite while believing they are acting in accordance with Sharia law.
"From the point of view of Sharia, Iraq is now inclined towards an emir, cutting short the declarations of certain ulema (religious scholars) in the region, according to whom Jihad (holy war) in Iraq has no banner," said Sirri.
Saudi Arabia's grand mufti had in November denounced the practice of deceiving youths into travelling to Iraq to join a Jihad proclaimed against the US-led occupation because their was no clear leader in the insurgency.
"Inciting young men and deceiving youths into going to Iraq is not permissible because there is no banner (emir) under which they can fight," Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said at the time.
The grand mufti's statement followed a call by 26 Muslim scholars who urged the Iraqi people to resist the "occupying forces" in their country, saying Jihad is a religious duty.
"Anointing Zarqawi as emir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq engages the other Islamic organisations and armed groups to rally under the banner of Zarqawi's group," said Sirri.
Among these groups, Sirri referred to the Al-Qaeda linked Ansar Al-Sunna, which claimed responsibility for an attack against a US military base in the Iraqi city of Mosul on December 21, killing at least 22 people including 14 US soldiers.
Ansar al-Sunna is an alliance of several small radical Islamist groups, including the radical group Ansar Al-Islam.
The latter used to control a small enclave in northeastern Iraq before it was crushed by US forces in late March last year and which regrouped in the region some months later.

12/28/2004 10:29 GMT - AFP