FALLUJA/RAMADI Iraq (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday's polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.
In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Graffiti calling for holy war is now hard to find.
And here's more bad news for al Qaeda.
More bad news for Zawahiri: "Moderate Muslim clerics in about half a million mosques across Bangladesh on Friday preached that suicide bombers are the enemy of Islam." Heh. Indonesia isn't looking so good for him either: "Volunteers from Indonesia's largest Islamic organisation will guard churches across the world's most populous Muslim nation on Christmas amid fears of terrorist attacks on those places, the group said on Friday."
No wonder Iraqis are feeling happy.
Interviewers found that 71% of those questioned said things were currently very or quite good in their personal lives, while 29% found their lives very or quite bad.
When asked whether their lives would improve in the coming year, 64% said things would be better and 12% said they expected things to be worse.
It's not just the Iraqis that feel happy, the Afghans are quite happy with thier new freedom as well.
All of which has made Zawahiri start to sound like he's surrendering.
CAIRO, Egypt, Dec. 11, 2005 (The Canadian Press delivered by Newstex) -- Osama bin Laden's deputy, in a new tape that surfaced Sunday, urged all Muslims to take up arms and said their refusal to join the fight against "the Cross and Zionism" was a "malignant illness" that would only lead to the defeat of militant Islam.
Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri said the global Islamic community had "no hope for victory" until all Muslims signed on to the al-Qaida-led jihad.
"As long as this malignant illness continues to survive within us, there is no hope for victory and there can only be more defeats, tragedies, disasters and betrayals," al-Zawahri said.
al Qaeda have lost, they just don't know it yet.
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