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| Thursday, 13 January 2005 |
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Allawi: Nationwide Iraqi polls impossible-25 die in attacks TIKRIT, Iraq, Wednesday (AFP) Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged that some parts of Iraq would not be able to take part in this month's election as new attacks killed at least 25 people, six of them in a car bombing in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. "There are some pockets that will not participate in the election but they are not large," Allawi said. The US-backed premier vowed to spend 2.2 billion dollars this year to bolster the security forces fighting a bloody insurgency in central Iraq that has cost thousands of lives. "When our forces are capable of taking over the war against the insurgents, we will be able to begin discussions with the multinational forces on the Iraq army taking over the lead role in maintaining security in Iraqi towns," he said. Allawi said the insurgency had cost Iraq over 10 billion dollars in sabotage against oil and power infrastructure alone. Tuesday's bombing in Tikrit targeted a police station and came a day after Baghdad's deputy police chief was assassinated. All of the casualties were police, the US military said. Militants loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said they carried out the bombing, in an Internet statement. In the Sunni belt immediately south of the capital, dubbed the triangle of death because of the frequency of rebel attacks, three Iraqi civilians were killed and three wounded in a roadside bombing near Yussufiyah, witnesses and a hospital source said. The bombing apparently targeted a US military convoy but the casualties were on a passing minibus. North of Baghdad, five Iraqi soldiers and a civilian were killed in two separate attacks in the city of Samarra, recaptured from insurgents in a US-led assault in October, police said. An Iraqi interpreter for the Americans was shot dead near the main northern city of Mosul, while two police officers were killed by gunmen in the capital, police said. Further west, two Iraqi women were killed by mortar fire near the notorious US-run Abu Ghraib prison, the military said. A member of the prime minister's party was killed, bringing the number of INA supporters killed in the past two months to 22, party official Imad Shibib told AFP. And three Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush in the northern city of Mosul, as well as a truck driver, the US military said. US President George W. Bush, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said he was working to ensure the elections go ahead as planned on January 30, but warned the vote was only a "first step" towards a permanent government. |
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