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BAGHDAD : The
United States announced plans to increase its forces
in Iraq to their highest levels since last year's
invasion, as the country's interim government
engaged in a flurry of contacts to rally support for
January 30 elections.
US force levels will climb from 138,000 to about
150,000 by early January, extending tours of duty
and deploying fresh troops from the United States,
said US Brigadier General David Rodriguez.
That was the number of US ground troops in Iraq at
the end of major combat operations April 30, 2003.
"The purpose is mainly to provide security for the
elections, but it is also to keep up the pressure on
the insurgents following the Fallujah operation,"
Rodriguez said.
The top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey,
is extending the deployment of units already in Iraq
to keep experienced forces during the period,
Rodriguez said.
Two battalions of the 82nd Airborne Division have
also been ordered to deploy to Iraq for 120 days.
Meanwhile, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
was in Jordan, where he met King Abdullah II and
Iraqi exiles to rally support for the planned
January elections.
Imad Shabib, a member of Allawi's Iraqi National
Accord party, said the talks sought to "forge unity
in Iraq away from confessional differences" in the
run-up to the polls.
Jordan will "fully support" Baghdad in its efforts
to hold elections, state television quoted King
Abdullah as saying.
Allawi next heads to Russia and Germany, which
opposed the US-led 2003 invasion. He will not
however go to France, another fierce invasion
opponent.
In a gesture towards Sunni Muslim opposition groups
and organisations with possible ties to the
insurgency, Allawi is to meet with some 120 exiled
Iraqi opposition figures in Amman on December 8.
Despite trying to muster support from its neighbours
to secure its borders and improve security before
the vote, Allawi's government traded barbs at talks
in Iran with its hosts over which side was not doing
enough to fight unrest.
The meeting did end with a statement calling for
regional cooperation to be boosted.
In Baghdad, the country's largely ceremonial
President Ghazi al-Yawar voiced his support for
holding the elections as scheduled.
But despite Allawi's insistence that the level of
violence has dropped since the Fallujah assault,
Defence Minister Hazem Shaalan cast fresh doubt on
the schedule, saying security was still short of
what was required.
"I have the impression that all the conditions for
the election in Iraq have not been reached ... I am
not content as far as security is concerned because
for one thing our borders are open," he said in
Rome.
The interim authorities have rejected a call from
several major Iraqi parties for a six-month election
delay because of insecurity.
In a move that could potentially shape the future
political landscape of Iraq, Shiite Muslim officials
announced that a list backed by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani
would be presented to the electoral commission on
Wednesday.
Sistani, the highest Shiite religious authority in
Iraq, is one of the most powerful and popular
figures in the country. Analysts believe that any
list he endorses would be favourites in the polls.
Iraq's two main Kurdish political parties are to run
for the general elections on the same list, the
leader of one of the groups said.
"The Kurdish political powers have reached an
agreement to present a joint list for the general
elections as well as for the Kurdish parliament,"
said Massud Barzani, who heads the Kurdistan
Democratic Party.
The Kurdish heavyweights kept old differences behind
them in a bid to gain maximum weight in the next
interim parliament and enshrine their rights and
autonomy in the constitution to be drafted by the
elected assembly.
The Iraqi national guard, tasked with providing
security for the January national election, came
under attack Wednesday, and four of its members were
killed by insurgents in the restive Sunni city of
Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Four more people, including three children, were
killed in insurgent violence in the nearby town of
Baquba, and two in Dhuluiyah, another hotspot in the
Sunni triangle north of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, seven civilians were wounded in a suicide
car bomb attack on a national guard checkpoint
charge on the edge of Latifiyah, where US-led forces
are conducting a vast operation against insurgents
behind a string of attacks in the area in recent
months.
On November 23, US, British and Iraqi forces
launched a massive sweep of the badlands around the
town in an area south of Baghdad known as the
"triangle of death" in the latest push to reclaim
rebel bastions ahead of the January polls.
The US marines said more than 200 suspected
insurgents have been captured since the start of
"Operation Plymouth Rock," which came on the heels
of operations against rebels in Fallujah and Mosul.
Separately, Islamist group Ansar al-Islam claimed to
have killed three Iraqi "collaborators" with US
forces west of Baghdad, in an Internet statement. It
was not clear when the killings took place.
AFP
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