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Bombs, protests as Iraq election mood
sours
25.12.2005
By Alastair Macdonald
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BAGHDAD, Dec 25
(Reuters) - Bombs struck Iraqi police and army
patrols and destroyed an American tank in Baghdad on
Sunday as fresh street protests over election
results kept up tension that has soured the mood
after a peaceful ballot 10 days ago.
In the violent northern city of Mosul, the killing
of a Sunni Arab student leader abducted after
heading a demonstration against the election results
prompted accusations by mourners at his funeral
against militias loyal to the victorious Shi'ite
Islamists and their Kurdish allies in the interim
government.
President Jalal Talabani, meeting the U.S.
ambassador who is mediating in efforts to transform
the newly inclusive parliament into a viable
government, urged Sunni leaders to join a new,
broader coalition. Otherwise there would be no
peace, he warned.
Disappointed Sunni and secular parties have demanded
a rerun of the Dec. 15 election and threatened to
boycott parliament, a move that could damage U.S.
hopes of forging a consensus that can keep Iraq from
breaking up in ethnic and sectarian warfare.
But despite militant rhetoric, seemingly aimed at
increasing their leverage, Sunnis are negotiating
with others to build a governing coalition on the
basis of the existing poll results.
Meeting U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in his Kurdish
power base of Sulaimaniya, Talabani said: "Without
the Sunni parties there will be no consensus
government ... without consensus government there
will be no unity, there will be no peace."
LULL OVER
After a lull during the election, secured partly by
fierce security measures and partly by an informal
ceasefire by Sunni rebels hoping for representation
in parliament, deadly attacks have picked up. Ten
Iraqi soldiers were killed in one assault on Friday
as were 10 worshippers at a Shi'ite mosque.
A U.S. soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled
grenade attack near Kirkuk on Saturday and troops
marking Christmas had no respite on Sunday; an
Abrams tank, the giant bulwark of American armoured
might, was left in flames after a dawn attack in
eastern Baghdad -- witness said a roadside bomb
blasted it.
A U.S. military spokesman confirmed an attack on a
tank but had no details of its cause or of any
casualties.
Two car bombs, parked by the roadside, went off
around lunchtime, wounding three Iraqi soldiers and
a civilian in the city centre and three policemen in
eastern Baghdad, police said.
Two soldiers were killed and six wounded in a mortar
attack on an Iraqi base at Mahmudiya, just south of
the capital.
In Kirkuk, where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen are vying
for control of the northern oilfields, a civilian
was killed and seven wounded when a car bomb went
off close to a police patrol.
Further north, in Mosul, Iraq's third city where
ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds are also
high, a roadside bomb killed a policeman when it
detonated close to his patrol.
Anger flared round Mosul's university campus, one of
Iraq's most distinguished, after the bullet-riddled
body of the head of the student union was found on
Sunday.
The body, found with the victim's hands bound behind
his back, also bore marks of strangling, a hospital
source said.
Gunmen had grabbed Qusay Salahaddin from his home on
Thursday, two days after he had led a demonstration
against the election results, and bundled him into
the trunk of a car before driving off, said Mohammed
Jassim, a friend of the victim.
From there, Salahaddin used his mobile phone to call
for help, Jassim said, accusing Kurdish peshmerga
militia: "Save me, the peshmerga have kidnapped me,"
Jassim quoted Salahaddin, a Sunni Arab, as saying
before the line went dead.
Among some 2,000 fellow students gathered at a
mosque where the body was taken, accusations quickly
flew against another favoured target of Sunni Arab
complaint, militia forces loyal to one of the main
Islamist parties in the Shi'ite Alliance bloc.
No group claimed responsibility for the killing.
ELECTION ANGER
Mosul -- one of two cities named by U.S. President
George W. Bush before the election as a model of
progress in Iraq -- has been at the forefront of
complaints of voter fraud this year.
Provisional national results of the Dec. 15 election
show the Shi'ite Alliance bloc should come close to
retaining its slim majority in the new legislature,
despite a big turnout by Sunni Arabs who boycotted a
poll in January.
That has sparked protests in recent days in Baghdad
and elsewhere by Sunni and secular parties, despite
assurances from U.N. and other officials that
irregularities under investigation affect only an
insignificant proportion of the ballot.
About 1,000 marched on Sunday in Baquba northeast of
Baghdad and, in the subdued former rebel stronghold
of Falluja to the west, some 2,000 people joined a
demonstration that also expressed anger at a
government fuel price hike last week.
City council leader Kamal al-Nazal complained of
fraud in an election the once dominant Sunni
minority had taken part in for the first time with
high hopes, only to see them disappointed: "We went
to a wedding," he said. "And it turned into a
funeral."
(Additional reporting by Nabil Nourredine in Mosul,
Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Fadil al-Badrani in Falluja,
Cyrille Cartier in Sulaimaniya and Aseel Kami in
Baghdad)
Reuters
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