UN: it is impossible to make elections in Iraq

The spokesman for the UN envoy to Iraq, Ahmad Fawzi, stressed that elections can not be made in Iraq before handing over the authority by the end of June next year.

He said that the UN delegation felt that the higher Shiite clergy, Ayatullah Ali al-Seisatni, seems to have admited the reality that the remaining period of time so far until the end of June is not enough to make the elections which al-Seistani insisted on.

For his part, al-Ibraheimi said in conclusion of his meeting with the Interim Governing Council in Baghdad that the timing of the elections should be "linked to a certain date," adding that optimum conditions should be realized to permit Iraq to make elections amid appropriate atmospheres.

In Karbala, Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalee, secretary of Ayatullah al-Seistani, said that the religious leader awaits the final decision of the UN concerning the making of elections "to reply to it." In New York, diplomats disclosed that UN officials consider that making elections might be possible before the end of the year, but they said that the system of election conferences, proposed by Washington is no longer debated on the table.

In Baghdad, the deputy secretary of Muslim scholars, Ahmad Hassan al-Taha, unmasked proposals proposed by the commissions to al-Ibraheimi as an alternative for the elections.

Al-Taha said in a Friday's sermon at Imam Abi Haneifah, in al-Azameyah area, that the proposals of the commission are focused on forming a new government chosen by all political groups in Iraq to replace the governing council.

He added that the end of occupation is the best solution, and if this impossible that an alternative government would be the side which that would assume agreement with the occupation forces to withdraw from the cities.

Meantime, an official in Karkouk's police to the north of Iraq announced the killing of one Iraqi on late evening Thursday by the American occupation forces.

A spokesman for the occupation forces announced the killing of one American military police member and wounding of two others in a bomb explosion that targeted a patrol near Abu Gharib area in Baghdad on late evening Thursday.

In Musil, the Assure Democratic Movement in Iraq, which takes the city as a headquarters, announced that its headquarters was attacked and this resulted in wounding one guard.

On the other hand, officials in the Pentagon expressed their concern that the Iraqi resistance might be trying to infiltrate and target high level officials after recent attacks against three senior American officials, the last one was the leader of the central American leadership Gen. John Abizaid in al-Falouja on Thursday.

The officials who asked not to be identified said that the Pentagon has realized the possibility that the resistance men seek to infiltrate into the Iraqi security forces formed by Washington or to place a secret agent inside the operations led by the US in the country.

In Seoul, the south Korean parliament approved a government's plan to send 3,000 soldiers to Iraq.

The plan states to send 1600 engineering and doctors soldiers and 1400 fighting soldiers to defend them to the city of Karkouk, to the north of the country, by the end of April.