Curfew in Iraq to maintain security for the elections

The Iraqi minister of the interior Falah al-Naqib said that as from tomorrow Friday, curfew will be introduced from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. for three days in order to ensure the security of the elections.

The Iraqi borders and Baghdad's International Airport will be closed as from Saturday for two days. It was decided to ban gatherings and aggregations near the election centers and embargo transport among governorates and banning carrying of weapons except for police men. Al-Naqib vowed in a press conference in Baghdad that the armed operations will not affect the process of the elections noting that there will be no place in Iraq where voters can not cast their votes. He stressed that the Iraqi forces have achieved what he called successes during the past days by foiling plans to blow up booby trapped cars and detention of scores of what he described as terrorists in Musil and Baghdad and disclosing weapons stores.

A spokesman for the International Organization For Migration said that some 280,000 Iraqis abroad had registered to vote. The spokesman said that this figure is the final outcome of the operation of registering the Iraqi expatriates. He said that those Iraqi expatriates will cast their votes as from Friday until Sunday in 14 countries.