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UN envoy supports Iraqi elections

A UN envoy said after talks with Iraq's top Shiite cleric yesterday that the world body backs his calls for elections but did not go into the timing of such polls.

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani "is insistent on holding the elections and we are with him on this 100 percent because elections are the best means to enable any people to set up a state that serves their interest," Lakhdar Brahimi told reporters after holding two hours of talks with the cleric who holds the key to Iraq's political future.

The most revered man in Iraq for the country's Shiites, who make up around 60 percent of the population, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called for direct elections before US occupiers hand back sovereignty to Iraqis by the middle of this year.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi heads a UN team that is in the country to discuss the possibility of holding elections ahead of the June 30 deadline.

Brahimi, an Algerian, met the reclusive cleric in the holy city of Najaf the day after a suicide bomb in Baghdad killed 47 people at an army recruitment center. A similar attack on Tuesday killed 53 people lining up for jobs at a police station.

Brahimi was accompanied by an Arab aide and Iraqi UN guards into Sistani's well-guarded complex. The 73-year-old leader has not ventured out of his house or met a Westerner for years, aides say.

Sistani, whose top religious rank grants him powerful influence in the Shiite community, called mass demonstrations earlier this year to press for elections to replace a US plan to choose a government through regional caucuses. US plans are for elections only next year.

Brahimi is due to leave Iraq by Friday at the latest, a senior US-led administration official has said. The rest of the UN team has started touring provinces. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to give his opinion on the elections on Feb. 21.

In the latest bout of violence, the US Army's 1st Armored Division said a bomb exploded on Wednesday evening as troops were passing by in their vehicles, killing two soldiers.

The attack on the US patrol came hours after the second major suicide attack in 24 hours aimed at Iraqis working with the US occupying forces.

Only a few of the bodies from Wednesday's blast had been taken for burial. Doctors said some corpses were difficult to identify due to mutilation or bad burns.

The police and new army are central to Washington's plan to hand over power to Iraqis. Most of Wednesday's 47 victims were newly recruited soldiers.

The attacks follow a pattern of targeting Iraqis seen as collaborating with the US occupation.

Meanwhile, though the US military knows 537 of its soldiers have been killed in the war in Iraq, and can cite names and know how and when they died, when it comes to dead Iraqi civilians, it will not even talk hundreds or thousands.

Independent think tanks estimate as many as 10,000 civilians may have died as a direct result of the US-led military intervention in Iraq, either during the war or in attacks aimed at uprooting the US occupation.

US authorities in Iraq say they keep no official tally.

"We don't track, we don't have the capacity to track all civilian casualties," Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt said.
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