Gunmen Kill 8 Iraqi National Guardsmen
By SALLY BUZBEE, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed eight Iraqi National Guard soldiers at a checkpoint in central Iraq (news - web sites) on Monday, and eight people died in a suicide car bombing at a police station north of Baghdad, as insurgents struck at security forces on the day exiles began to register for Iraq's national elections.
Some of the latest violence, including a series of weekend attacks along a
highway southeast of Baghdad, occurred in provinces which U.S. and Iraqi
authorities have deemed safe enough to hold the elections and appear to be
attempts to scare the country's majority Shiites away from the Jan. 30 polls.
Underscoring these security concerns, Shiite politician Salama Khafaji, who
survived an ambush in central Baghdad Sunday by gunmen wearing police uniforms,
said she's canceled campaigning in the south after her staff discovered
terrorist checkpoints on major routes.
"What we fear now most is terrorists wearing police uniforms," Khafaji told
The Associated Press Monday. "The uniforms and body armor used by the police are
available on the market for anyone to buy," she said.
She said the security situation was so bad that she had shelved plans to tour
mainly Shiite cities in central and southern Iraq starting Monday. "We sent
people out today to check roads in the area but they have reported back that
terrorists have set up some road checkpoints."
"Generally I cannot go out and meet people or knock on door to get out the
vote like they do in the West," she lamented.
On Monday, exiled Iraqis began registering to vote in their homeland's first
independent election in nearly 50 years. Iraqis can vote abroad in 14 countries,
including the United States, and there is a seven-day registration period that
ends Jan. 23. Voting will begin Jan. 28 and continue until the Jan. 30 election
in Iraq.
Officials estimate 1.2 million Iraqis are eligible to vote overseas. In
Britain, many of the estimated 150,000 Iraqis eligible to vote were confused
about the fledgling political process and unsure who to vote for.
"People keep calling us and asking us, 'Who should we vote for?'" said Jabbar
Hasan of the Iraqi Community Association, a London-based group for Iraqi expats.
"We say it is up to you, you decide. It is a new experience, even for the
political parties."
The eight Iraqi National Guard soldiers' deaths occurred at a checkpoint
outside a provincial broadcasting center in Buhriz, about 35 miles northeast of
Baghdad. Four other Iraqi soldiers were injured in the attack, said an official
at the nearby Baqouba hospital, Ali Ahmed. The area is considered a hotspot of
the insurgency as violence flares before the Jan. 30 balloting.
The suicide attack occurred at a police station in Beiji, about 155 miles
north of Baghdad on the main supply route north. Eight people were killed and 25
were injured, according to a hospital official, but it was unclear if they were
police or civilians.
In the Shiite holy city of Karbala south of Baghdad, meanwhile, police
dismantled explosives placed in a car, said police spokesman Rahman Mshawi. The
car was parked about 3 miles from two of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines in the
city.
Several of the bloodiest attacks in recent days have taken place in provinces
that U.S. and Iraqi officials have classified as secure enough to hold
elections.
Late Sunday, a police captain, Shakir Aboud, was killed and another policeman
was injured when their car was hit by a roadside bomb in Numaniyah, 85 miles
southeast of Baghdad, according to a morgue official in Kut's hospital.
The area around Kut has seen a recent flare-up in violence. In a separate
attack, two Iraqi government auditors were shot to death late Sunday after armed
gunmen stopped their car in Suwaira, near Kut.
The two Iraqis, who worked in the provincial auditing department in Kut, were
shot while riding in their car in Suwaira, about 25 miles southeast of Baghdad,
according to an official at a Kut hospital.
The town of Suwaira and the city of Kut lie along a main road southeast of
Baghdad that, until recently, had served as a safer alternative route for Iraqis
traveling from Baghdad to mostly Shiite southern Iraq.
The main road south had earlier been hit with violent attacks and kidnappings
in an area dubbed the "triangle of death." Gangs of Sunni Muslim extremists had
been targeting foreigners, government officials, security personnel and Shiite
Muslims on the main highway.
But in recent days, the area around Kut and Suwaria have seen a flare-up in
insurgent violence, apparently committed by insurgents seeking to block traffic
south along the alternative route.
On Sunday, a total of 17 people were killed in the Suwaria and Kut area,
including three Iraqi policemen and three Iraqi National Guard soldiers killed
in separate attacks. As mourners gathered for the policemen's funeral, a suicide
bomber killed another seven people — all civilians — and himself.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have classified Kut as among the areas that are
secure enough to hold elections.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have insisted that the elections go ahead as
scheduled. Interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said that if the elections were
postponed for six months, there was no guarantee the violence would wane.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
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