Extreme violence escorts the Iraqi elections
Iraq, Politics, 1/29/2005

While the Independent Higher Commission For The Iraqi Elections, which supervises the Iraqi elections inside Iraq, started to distribute the ballot boxes, seven members of the Iraqi police were killed and other 4 injured including two civilians in two separate attacks. The first target is an election center in Karkouk city to the north of Iraq and the second was carried out by a suicide bomber in a booby trapped car in al-Doura to the south of Baghdad in which six security men were killed.

News reports said that the suicide bomber tried to enter the station but he failed and then he blew up his car at an inspection point for the Iraqi police at the entrance. These attacks were launched after Ansar al-Sunnah army threatened to target the voting centers and kill the Iraqis who will take part in the elections.

The Iraqi national security affairs minister Qasem Dawoud said the Iraqi security forces detained aides for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida organization in Iraq, "including the commander of the armed operations in Baghdad." Al-Zarqawi group on Tuesday broadcast on a site on the Internet a video tape showing the killing operation of a candidate from the party of the prime minister Eyad Allawi, called Salem Jafaar al-Kenani, the secretary of the prime minister which the tape described as a traitor. The tape also included a threat to kill Allawi.

With the aim to impose greater control on Iraq's border to prevent illegal entry to Iraq, the American forces reinforced its presence on the Iraqi- Syrian borders, military helicopters started to transfer soldiers of the marine forces to the border areas in order to take part in the monitoring and inspection operation.

One officer in the American army said that the aim of these reinforcements is to prevent what he called the sneaking of gunmen from Syria to Iraq. These reinforcements came in preparations to close the Iraqi land border on the occasion of organizing the elections on January 30th.

Previous Stories:
  Lebanese embassy in Baghdad seeks to release Kidnapped Citizens   (1/28/2005)
  Turkish fears over the demographic structure change of Karkouk   (1/28/2005)
  Voting for the Iraqi elections starts in Australia   (1/28/2005)

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