SAMARRA, Iraq: For some Iraqis voting is a way to avenge the killing of their loved ones, others hope the ballot will enact change, bring justice and maybe even reverse their fortunes. Nearly 100,000 voters in central Iraq’s Samarra — a city with a violent past and links to Al-Qaeda insurgents — are flocking to register to vote ahead of the delayed ballot, which was originally scheduled for Oct. 1.

“This time we will vote. There is no doubt. We have to assert our rights,” said Ahmed Hakim Al-Samarraie, a 28-year-old biology lecturer in the Samarra College of Science.

It’s a dramatic turnaround in attitudes from four years ago when Samarra residents who had pledged to vote were cowed by Al-Qaeda bullying, threats and wholesale murder.

Samarra, north of Baghdad, holds the dubious distinction of having sparked the violent sectarianism which swept through Iraq after Al-Qaeda insurgents bombed a revered Shiite shrine in the city of 600,000 people.

The attack on Al-Askari Mosque on Feb. 22, 2006, while it did not kill anyone, unleashed a wave of sectarian violence that consumed Iraq, claiming tens of thousands of Shiite and Sunni Muslim lives. In the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion, Sunni rebel groups such as the Islamic Army, Ansar Al-Sunnah and Jaish Al-Mujahedeen attacked Americans and local citizens.

When the Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi — later killed in a US airstrike — spearheaded the insurgency, he threatened a “merciless war” if Samarra citizens voted in January 2005 parliamentary and provincial elections.

Locals hid in fear as Zarqawi’s men attacked schools converted to voting centers, derailing the election that many believe could have given Samarra eight seats in Salaheddin’s 38-member provincial council.

“The situation was different then. People were scared,” said Samarraie. “But not voting has caused more suffering as we are dying for basic needs. We want to change this situation. Everybody will vote this time.”

Eligible men and women are queuing up daily throughout Samarra to register to vote, even if the polls for Iraq’s 18 provinces that Washington sees as key to stability are unlikely to take place in 2008 due to political wrangling.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s government is grateful to US-allied Sunni fighters but won’t allow them to keep their weapons indefinitely, the prime minister said yesterday, hinting at a more intense crackdown on the Sunni groups. In recent weeks, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has gone after Sunni fighters despite their alliances with the Americans. Some leaders have been arrested, while scores of others have been disarmed and banned from manning checkpoints except alongside security forces.

Al-Maliki’s government has mixed feelings about Sunni tribes that rose up against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, starting in 2007, and joined the Americans in the fight against the terror network.

The groups, known as Awakening Councils, Sons of Iraq and Popular Committees, have helped rout Al-Qaeda in some parts of Iraq.

But Shiite leaders fear the Sunnis’ switch of allegiance is just a tactic, and that they could one day turn their weapons against the Shiite majority.