Iraqi troops, police, prisoners and the infirm began voting yesterday, three days ahead of a parliamentary election seen as pivotal for a divided country that US troops are scheduled to leave by the end of next year.
Special voting was taking place for groups not able to cast ballots in Sunday’s poll, most of them from the 670,000-strong security forces assigned to protect voting stations.
Police in Anbar, a desert province that became the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim-based insurgency after the 2003 US-led invasion, said they had briefly imposed an overnight vehicle curfew after finding a fuel tanker primed with explosives.
PHOTO: AFP
The discovery came a day after at least 33 people were killed in volatile Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad when three suicide bombers attacked police stations and a hospital.
Police said they had arrested 10 suspects in connection with the coordinated assaults in Baqubah, Diyala’s provincial capital.
The outcome of the election, Iraq’s second full national poll since the invasion, will test progress toward stability.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday only an “extraordinarily dire” security deterioration would warrant a slowdown in plans for the remaining 96,000 US troops to end combat operations in August and withdraw completely by the end of next year.
Foreign oil firms starting to invest in Iraq’s vast oilfields are also watching to see if security gains can be sustained against Shiite militia, which the US military says are backed by Iran, and Sunni Islamist insurgents like al-Qaeda.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has based his campaign for a second term in part on claiming credit for a sharp fall in violence as all-out war between once dominant Sunnis and the majority Shiites empowered by former dictator Saddam Hussein’s fall receded.
He faces a stiff challenge from his erstwhile Shiite partners and also from a secular, cross-sectarian alliance headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi, and his security credentials have been undermined by a series of devastating assaults on the Iraqi capital by suicide bombers since August.
A roadside bomb killed five civilians and wounded 22 in the Hurriya neighborhood in northwestern Baghdad, near a voting center that will be used in Sunday’s polls, a source at the Interior Ministry said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s foreign minister accused neighboring countries of attempting to influence the outcome of the national election.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait have all intervened to varying degrees ahead of Iraq’s second national election, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.
“This is not just an Iraqi election, this is a regional election that Iraq’s neighbors are watching very closely,” he said in an interview late on Wednesday. “Some of them are active participants in supporting certain groups, favoring certain outcomes.”
Zebari did not cite specific actions, but said interference included financial support for parties.
Iraqis are concerned about Iranian influence over the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, the activities in Syria of people loyal to Hussein and funding by Saudis of Islamist insurgent groups.
“Many of the regional powers don’t like our experiment in democracy,” Zebari said. “Some of our neighbors look upon this experiment with unease. We are not exporters of democratic revolutions, but this is our destiny, this is our choice.”
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