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BAGHDAD, Iraq -
Iraqi officials said Saturday they are considering
new measures to protect voters in the Jan. 30
national election, including a three-day, nationwide
ban on driving to discourage car-bombings. Fresh
clashes broke out in the troubled northern city of
Mosul, where most election officials have fled their
jobs in fear.
A U.S. military helicopter made an emergency landing
in Mosul after drawing ground fire, the U.S. command
said. And a U.S. Marine was killed in action
Saturday in a tense area just south of Baghdad.
U.S. and Iraqi officials fear a surge in insurgent
attacks as the election approaches. Many members of
the Sunni Arab minority are expected to boycott the
balloting, and Sunni rebel groups have threatened to
attack polling stations.
To prevent that, an Iraqi Cabinet minister told
reporters that authorities are considering a number
of special measures, including restrictions on the
movement of private vehicles, and possible security
cordons around polling stations.
Provincial Affairs minister Waeil Abdel-Latif gave
no details about the proposed restrictions, but
security officials said they included banning all
private vehicle traffic across the country for three
days around the election. That would make it easier
to spot would-be vehicle bombers and to inhibit
rebel movements.
"The government is determined to make available
facilities and security guarantees to ensure the
success of the election," Abdel-Latif said.
Underscoring the security threat, fresh clashes
broke out Saturday in Mosul between U.S. troops and
insurgents after the rebels blasted an American
convoy.
After the blast, insurgents opened fire on American
troops, who then raided a nearby agricultural
research station looking for the assailants.
A U.S. Army OH58 Kiowa helicopter made an emergency
landing in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, after
receiving ground fire. The two crew members escaped
injury, the command said.
In Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the U.S. general
responsible for security in northern Iraq, said that
virtually every election worker in Ninevah province,
which includes Mosul, quit recently because of
security fears.
Ham said a new election coordinator was scrambling
to find workers with about two weeks left before the
election and that staffers may have to be sent there
from other parts of the country.
"To tell you the truth, we don't know how many staff
there actually were," he told reporters. "But we
know that at one point, there were essentially none
left."
Ham also said there were indications that insurgents
were getting support from Iraqis who fled to Syria,
about 70 miles west of Mosul, after Saddam's regime
collapsed, echoing allegations by Iraqi officials.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, three mortar shells exploded
Saturday near the heavily guarded Green Zone,
causing no casualties but sending American and Iraqi
officials scurrying for cover. It marked the third
straight day of rebel attacks on the zone, the nerve
center of the U.S. and Iraqi administration, after a
lull of a couple of weeks.
A roadside bomb ripped through a U.S. convoy
Saturday on the western edge of Baghdad, destroying
a truck, police Lt. Akram al-Zubaie said. No
casualties were reported.
U.S. troops also arrested six suspected insurgents,
including a former Iraqi general, in raids around
Baghdad, U.S. officials said. The general, who was
not identified, was suspected of planning insurgent
attacks.
Separately, an Iraqi insurgent group claimed
responsibility Saturday for the kidnapping of 15
Iraqi National Guard members. The guardsmen were
pulled from a bus Friday near their base in the town
of Hit, 90 miles west of Baghdad.
A statement posted on an Islamic Web site took
responsibility on behalf of Ansar al-Sunnah but said
nothing of the men's fate.
It was Ansar al-Sunnah that claimed responsibility
for the December suicide bombing that killed 22
people, most of them Americans, at a U.S. military
mess tent in Mosul.
A police checkpoint southwest of the northern city
of Kirkuk also was attacked on Saturday, with a
policeman killed and four others seriously wounded,
officials said. Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin, the
area's Iraqi National Guard commander, said the
assailants waited until they were close to the
checkpoint before opening fire.
Turkey's CNN-Turk television reported that a car
bomb exploded late Saturday near a local parliament
building Irbil, 200 miles north of Baghdad, killing
at least seven people as Kurdish leaders Jalal
Talabani and Masoud Barzani left a meeting to
discuss the elections. However, an official with
Barzani's group the Kurdistan Democratic Party
denied the report.
The Kurdish official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told The Associated Press in Baghdad by
telephone that a mortar shell exploded in a city
park, causing no casualties or damage.
Security fears and opposition within the Sunni
community have led to calls by some Sunni
politicians to delay the election, a proposal
strongly rejected by the U.S. administration and the
country's powerful Shiite clerical hierarchy.
Iraqis will choose a 275-member parliament as well
as provincial administrations. Voters in the Kurdish
autonomous region will also select a new regional
parliament.
However, U.S. and Iraqi officials fear that a low
Sunni turnout could cast doubt on the new
government's legitimacy. Many Sunni Arabs, who make
up an estimated 20 percent of Iraq's nearly 26
million people, fear a loss of political power to
the Shiites _ an estimated 60 percent of the
population.
During a press conference Saturday, leading Shiite
politicians sought to dispel fears they would impose
an Iranian-style clerical regime and appealed to
Sunnis to participate in balloting.
"The issue is who do you want to obey _ Saddam
Hussein, Osama bin Laden ... or the Iraqi people,"
said Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, the government's national
security adviser. "There is no intention or plan to
form an Islamic or religious state in Iraq ... or an
Iranian style government."
Shiite candidate Ahmad Chalabi, once the Pentagon's
choice to rule Iraq, said he planned to meet with
Sunni leaders to encourage them to vote.
"I believe that this impression that the Sunnis will
not vote will be dispelled quickly," he said. "They
will vote."
In another development Saturday, the Defense
Ministry confirmed a report in a major Arabic daily
that an Iraqi woman trained by members of Saddam's
regime in Syria tried to assassinate the defense
minister but collapsed before carrying out her
mission.
Al Hayat newspaper quoted Defense Minister Hazem
Shaalan as saying the assassination attempt took
place in his Baghdad office more than a week ago.
Shaalan told the newspaper that the woman, who is
about 40, entered the ministry claiming she wanted
to deliver important security information.
"As she was sitting in the presence of several
officials from the ministry, she surprised everyone
by taking out a pistol she was carrying and pointed
it at me from a distance of about one meter, but in
the last moment she collapsed and started crying,"
he was quoted as saying.
Associated Press correspondents Bassem Mroue, Jason
Keyser and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this
report.
Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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