BAGHDAD — Iraq’s electoral commission said Tuesday that there will be no balloting in parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province engulfed in clashes between security forces and Al Qaeda-inspired militants.
Since late December, the western Anbar province has seen fierce fighting between government troops and allied tribal militias on one side, and militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, on the other.
The militants have seized and are continuing to hold parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi, and nearly all of the nearby city of Fallujah.
The exclusion of such major cities — where most of the fighting is underway as
Iraqi forces try to wrest back areas overrun by militants — from the April 30 voting for Iraq’s Parliament could deepen Sunni fears of being marginalized by the Shi’ite
majority.
Advertisement