Several of Iraq’s major Sunni Arab political movements announced on Wednesday that they were forming an alliance to contest December parliamentary elections, in a sign of increased mobilisation of what has been until now the least organised of the country’s main ethnic blocs.

The Iraqi Islamic Party and the National Dialogue Council, two well-established Sunni organisations, declared they were joining with the Conference of the People of Iraq to form the Iraqi Concord Front, the groups said in a statement.