Iraq borders closed to halt attacks

Iraq will seal its borders next week to prevent Shi'ite pilgrims flooding into the country, the Government said yesterday, in the latest emergency measure intended to thwart insurgent violence.

The borders will be closed between February 17 and February 22, in a move designed to coincide with the climax of Ashura, a major Shiite religious ceremony.

Insurgents kept up pressure on Iraqi security forces, killing at least 10 police in a fierce and protracted gun battle near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, police sources said. Several people were arrested, including three Iranians and two suspected insurgents from Saudi Arabia.

Millions of Shiites travel from across the region to holy sites in Iraq for Ashura and last year suicide bombers attacked pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing at least 170 people.

Government spokesman Thaer al-Naqib said foreign pilgrims should make sure they arrived before the borders closed.

Drivers trying to enter Iraq from Syria, Iran and Jordan said many crossings were already shut. The move could contribute to tensions with Iran, from where thousands of pilgrims enter Iraq each year.

At least eight Iraqi civilians died in militant attacks yesterday, including three in a car bomb in central Baghdad, which a US Army spokesman said might have been aimed at an American convoy that passed by shortly before.

He said there were no US casualties but the explosion scattered wreckage across Tahrir Square, a major intersection lined with stalls and near large hotels.

Scores of Iraqis have been killed since the country's historic election on January 30, which is expected to hand power to a coalition of Shiite Islamist groups.

An Iraqi group which said it was holding an Italian journalist hostage said it would free her if Italy announced within 48 hours that it would withdraw its 3000 troops from Iraq, according to a web statement.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with the communist Rome newspaper Il Manifesto, was snatched in Baghdad last Friday. It set a 72-hour deadline for Italy to remove its troops, but two days later said she would be released.

Iraq's Electoral Commission is making final checks on some 300 ballot boxes over the next few days and before releasing a final vote tally.

Partial results show the alliance of mainly Shiite Islamist parties is well in the lead, as expected. A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is third.

The Shiite alliance said it would demand the post of Prime Minister in the next government. The Kurds want their candidate, Jalal Talabani, to be President.

Much horse trading is already taking place. Allawi travelled to Kurdistan to meet Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party and Talabani's partner. He later told reporters a partnership might be possible.

Many in the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the country under Saddam Hussein, stayed away from the polls, either because of violence or calls for a boycott.

Results are not yet in from several mainly Sunni provinces. But those from Salahadin, a mainly Sunni province that includes Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, indicate few Sunnis voted.

There are fears that Sunni exclusion from the political process could fuel the insurgency, which is mainly being waged by Sunni guerrillas.

- REUTERS