Iraq's landmark January polls looked set to take place as planned, although ongoing violence yesterday did nothing to alleviate the security concerns of the proponents of a delay.
Yet another car bomb exploded on Baghdad's perilous airport road, while US patrols in Mosul yielded their grim daily crop of bodies as insurgents continue to intimidate the population in the northern city ahead of the elections.
PHOTO: AP
"There were 17 bodies discovered on Saturday -- in addition to the 15 discovered the day prior," Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings said.
This brought to at least 57 the number of bodies, mostly belonging to members of Iraq's security forces, found in the city since Nov. 19.
Iraqi and US forces, which have been involved a vast operation to root out the insurgency in Mosul for more than a week, arrested 43 suspects on Saturday alone, a US military statement said.
The headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in western Mosul were attacked by gunmen in a car, a security official said. Guards fired back, wounding one of the attackers.
A car bomb exploded on the road leading to the airport road in Baghdad, wounding two soldiers and damaging a military vehicle, the US military said in a statement.
Meanwhile US-led troops continued to sweep insurgent strongholds across the country, arresting more than 100 suspects since the start of the five-day-old crackdown in the lawless badlands south of Baghdad.
US forces, backed by British and Iraqi troops, regained control of the town of Latifiyah, which had been a no-go zone for months and earned the nickname of "Fallujah's second name."
US marines were still clearing Fallujah, three weeks after they launched the largest post-war military operation in Iraq, in a bid to reclaim insurgent-held areas ahead of the elections.
Several leading parties on Friday agreed on a statement demanding the elections -- the country's first free and multi-party vote in half a century -- be postponed by six months because the security conditions were not met.
But most of the relevant authorities rejected the idea and said everything would be done to hold the elections on Jan. 30, as scheduled.
"Postponing the elections is out of the question," electoral commission chairman Abdel Hussein al-Hindawi said Saturday after examining a request submitted a day earlier by 17 organizations, including 10 major parties.
"As far as we are concerned, the elections will be held at the date scheduled by the fundamental law," the commission chairman said Saturday. "In theory, the elections cannot be postponed, bar a political disaster."
Senior secular Sunni statesman Adnan Pachachi, who led the drive to delay the polls, stressed that the movements demanding a postponement would not necessarily boycott the vote if their request was rejected.
He also vowed that further delay requests would not be put forward, but did not specify which parties had decided to take part in the ballot and which ones were pulling out.
A government spokesman said later that the interim administration -- which has been accused to seeking to cling to power -- remained determined to hold the polls on time.
The country's majority Shiite community also came out strongly against delaying the vote, which they are expected to dominate -- putting an end to decades of a Sunni dominance which culminated under deposed leader Saddam Hussein.
"The Marajiy [religious Shiite leaders in Najaf] think a postponement of the elections would be unacceptable," a spokesman in the holy Shiite city said.
He said he was speaking in the name of all four leaders, including the influential Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shiite authority in Iraq.
Further indicating that the elections remained on target, the top US official in Iraq, Ambassador John Negroponte, said he was in favor of respecting the country's interim constitution, which says clearly that under no circumstances can the elections be held after Jan. 31.
"We believe there will be adequate security for these elections to be held on Jan. 30," he said during a visit to the city of Fallujah, which saw the largest post-war military operation in Iraq when US and Iraqi forces thrust into the area on Nov. 8.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese