Shi'ites demand elections in Iraq

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims yesterday marched to chants of "No to America" and an aide to their spiritual leader warned of bigger protests if Washington rejects the majority group's call for elections.

Iraq's US governor Paul Bremer headed for Washington for talks this weekend with President George W Bush.

They are likely to discuss mounting tension over a US plan to hand sovereignty to an Iraqi Administration by July without holding the direct elections the long-oppressed Shi'ites are demanding.

In the latest violence, three Iraqis were killed and one was injured when a landmine exploded under a bus packed with university students in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni Muslim home town, the US military said.

Highlighting fears of ethnic and religious bloodshed in the wake of Saddam's overthrow, a leader of the small Turkmen minority vowed a fight to the last drop of blood over a Kurdish drive to carve out an autonomous homeland in the north.

In the Shi'ite south, tens of thousands protested in Iraq's British-controlled second city of Basra in support of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for elections.

It was a show of strength behind the top Shi'ite cleric who, an aide said, could issue an edict against any unelected body.

Sistani has objected to the US plan for a transitional assembly to be selected by regional caucuses rather than a popular election. The assembly would select an interim government.

A Sistani edict could turn many Shi'ites against Washington at a time when US-led forces are battling guerrillas in what they call the "Sunni triangle" north and west of Baghdad.

Bremer has said he respects Sistani but there is not enough time to hold elections before a handover of sovereignty.

In Kut, armed police sealed off the mayor's office, the target of protesters' anger in a riot this week in which one man was killed and three were wounded.

In an effort to quell the anger of the unemployed, the authorities had organised a lottery at Kut sports stadium where 2000 applicants were trying for 150 jobs in the border police. Most had been soldiers in the Iraqi Army before it was disbanded.

One, Wahab Hashim, said: "Most of us were privates and we only got about $25 a month, but at least it was something."

- REUTERS, INDEPENDENT


Herald Feature: Iraq