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.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS