Iraq unrest as election date looms

10.00am UPDATE

BAGHDAD - Iraq has chosen January 30 for its first democratic election in decades but violence in Sunni Muslim areas underlines the challenge of holding polls on time.

According to Iraq's timetable for democracy, polls must be held by end-January for a transitional parliament that will pick a new government and oversee the writing of a constitution.

"The Electoral Commission set the date of January 30 as the date of the election," spokesman Farid Ayar told Reuters.

Iraq's Shi'ite majority, which was long oppressed under Saddam Hussein and hopes the election will cement its influence, is insisting that the polls be held on schedule.

But many Sunni Arabs want the election to be delayed and say they will boycott it if it goes ahead in January. Sunni Arab areas of Iraq have been the main battleground in the conflict between US-led troops and insurgents trying to drive them out.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed to crush the rebels to allow voting across Iraq. A cousin of Allawi who was kidnapped by militants on November 9 was freed, a source in his office said.

Insurgents have threatened to disrupt the elections, and the US military says it will raise troop numbers in Iraq by delaying the departure of some units. The controversy over the elections threatens to inflame sectarian and ethnic tensions.

Violence has surged in Sunni areas this month. Insurgents have attacked US and Iraqi security forces in several cities while the US military was preoccupied with a major offensive to drive insurgents out of the rebel stronghold of Falluja.

Just 60 km west of Falluja, gunmen mowed down a group of Iraqi National Guard troops, killing nine and wounding 17 after hijacking a convoy and lining the men up for execution. Elsewhere in Ramadi, guerrillas clashed again with US troops.

Near Latifiya, south of Baghdad, a Reuters reporter watched gunmen kill two off-duty Guards and a policeman at a roadblock.

MOSUL KILLINGS

In Mosul, Iraq's third city, the bodies of three men killed by insurgents were left lying on a street on Sunday, a day after US troops discovered the corpses of nine Iraqi soldiers.

All 12 bodies had been shot in the back of the head. Four headless corpses were also discovered in the city last week.

Next to the group of three bodies was a paper saying they were Kurds. US forces have brought in hundreds of Kurdish National Guards to help police Mosul, irritating local Arabs.

A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it had killed members of the Iraqi National Guard, the U.S.-backed paramilitary civil defence force, at a base near Mosul.

The group has also said it beheaded two members of the National Guard in central Mosul last week as a crowd watched and said in another internet statement on Sunday that it had killed 11 Mosul men who were on their way to enlist in the forces.

Washington says Zarqawi is its top enemy in Iraq and has put a $25 million (13.5 million pound) price on his head. The US military says he fled Falluja before the offensive there and may now be in Mosul.

"DISCIPLINED ENEMY"

The city spiralled into chaos this month when insurgents seized control of several areas and police fled. Some US troops had to be called back from Falluja to restore order.

Disturbingly for US forces, the attacks in Mosul as well as elsewhere are showing signs of growing organisation among the rebels. A US colonel ambushed last week with a Mosul police unit he was training said: "This was a disciplined enemy."

"Sometimes we think of the anti-Iraqi forces as a rag-tag bunch, but these guys were very disciplined," Colonel James Coffman was quoted as saying in a US military statement noting the award of a Purple Heart and his bravery after being wounded.

The guerrillas wore uniform black, operated as a unit and stood their ground despite having 23 comrades killed and perhaps dozens of wounded when US reinforcements arrived, he said.

Efforts to foster prosperity in a oil-rich country left in poverty by years of wars and UN sanctions took a step forward at the weekend when creditor nations, including Russia, agreed in the Paris Club to forgive up to 80 per cent of Iraq's debts.

Foreign ministers from countries which opposed last year's US invasion, including France, Iran and Syria, will meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell and others at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to discuss Iraq's future.

Diplomats expect the two-day meeting of 20 ministers to endorse Baghdad's election plans but expect little new agreement on how to help Iraq return to stability and independence.

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq