DUBAI, Jan 20 (AFP) - Ten days ahead of Iraq's elections, which the country's majority Shiite Muslims are tipped to win, Al-Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi accused Shiites of taking part in the US-led assault on the Sunni bastion of Fallujah in November, according to an audiotape message Thursday.
In the near 75-minute tape, posted on an Islamist website on the first day of the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Adha, Iraq's most-wanted man launched a bitter attack on Shiites, and in particular their spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whom he branded an "imam of infidelity and apostasy".
"The battle of Fallujah removed the ugly mask of the damned 'Rafidha' (a derogatory term for Muslim Shiites), whose hatred (for Sunnis) was manifested in this battle," Zarqawi said.
"They participated in the military campaign for the battle against Fallujah with the blessing of the imam of infidelity and apostasy, Sistani," he added.
"They played a big role in the massacre, the looting, the sabotage and the spilling of innocent blood among children, women and the elderly."
The authenticity of the tape could not be verified.
The speaker charged that Shiites "occupied (Sunni) mosques, sticking on their walls photos of their Satan, Sistani, and writing with hate: 'Today (we take) your territory, and tomorrow your honour.'"
He also said that, "90 percent of the (Iraqi) national guard is composed of hateful Rafidha and 10 percent peshmerga (Kurdish fighters)."
"The battle of Fallujah, which also lifted the veil of apostasy of the government (of Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi, allowed the transforming of all Iraq into a battlefield," he added.
US and Iraqi forces retook the rebel stronghold of Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital, from insurgents in an all-out assault last November.
"The battle of Fallujah, which was achieved through huge losses to enemy ranks, sapped enemy morale and reignited the flame of Jihad (holy war)," Zarqawi said.
In the same message, the Jordanian-born Zarqawi claimed that 800 Israeli soldiers as well as Jordanian troops took part in the Fallujah assault.
"It is known that 800 Israeli soldiers ... participated in the battle; just like the participation by the Jordanian military, whose officers contributed to the planning and the military assault against the city," he said.
Israeli soldiers in Fallujah "were accompanied by 18 rabbis, some of whom were killed, as newspapers and Israeli media announced," he said.
Last month, Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, was anointed by terror chief Osama bin Laden as Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
"The brothers in the group there must listen to him and obey him for what is good," bin Laden purportedly said in an audiotape message.
Accused of masterminding a large part of the Iraqi insurgency, Zarqawi was the reason behind the assault on Fallujah, but was said to have fled the city when the offensive began.
Last week, his Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers claimed responsibility for a suicide attack against the Baghdad headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shiite party.
01/20/2005 17:00 GMT - AFP