Iraq's interim government complained that the UN isn't doing enough to help prepare for January elections, saying the organization has sent fewer electoral workers than it did when tiny East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia.
US aircraft, meanwhile, mounted four strikes on Wednesday in Fallujah on what the US military said were safehouses used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network. A Sunni Muslim clerical group demanded that the Iraqi government prevent any full-scale US attack on Fallujah, hoping to muster the same public anger that forced the Marines to abandon a siege of the city last spring.
In other violence, 11 US soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded when two car bombs exploded in Samarra, a city that US and Iraqi forces have hailed as a success story since taking it from insurgents last month. An Iraqi child was killed and a civilian was wounded, the Army said.
A suicide bomber in Baghdad detonated his car near a US patrol on the airport road, wounding two US soldiers and two Iraqi policemen. Zarqawi's terror organization claimed responsibility for the attack, though it was not immediately possible to verify that the Internet posting was authentic.
US and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations seeking to curb insurgent violence so that Iraqi voters throughout the country can choose a new transitional government in January. The elected assembly is to draft a new constitution in a major step toward democratic rule after decades of tyranny and military occupation.
But Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari complained that the UN has not sent enough election experts to help prepare for the balloting.
"It is unfortunate that the contribution and participation of UN employees in this process is not up to expectations," Zebari told reporters.
He said the number of UN workers expected to help in the election was far smaller than the 300 workers the UN sent for the 1999 independence referendum in East Timor.
"Judging by the size of the process in Iraq and its complexity, we definitely need a larger UN presence in Iraq, at least to bestow trust upon the electoral process," Zebari said.
The UN pulled its international staff out a year ago after bombings at its Baghdad headquarters killed 22 people, including the top UN envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has since allowed a team to return to help with elections but imposed a ceiling of 35 non-Iraqi staffers. In the meantime, the UN is training Iraqis outside the country so they can come back and instruct other Iraqis on how to run an election.
Annan said on Tuesday in London that he had sought to form a UN brigade to guard UN workers and facilities so more staffers could be sent in, but complained he had gotten no offers of troops.
UN officials in New York said on Wednesday that Fiji was the only nation to respond to Annan's request and would send 130 soldiers to Iraq next month to protect senior staff and UN offices. Spokeswoman Marie Okabe said UN officials also were talking with the US-led coalition about providing troops to protect the perimeter of UN facilities and UN staffers working outside the UN offices in Baghdad.
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