Iraq Officials Seek Delay for Elections

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Posted 8:10PM on Friday, November 26, 2004

BAGHDAD - Leading Iraqi politicians called Friday for a six-month delay in the Jan. 30 election because of the spiraling violence as U.S. forces uncovered more bodies in the northern city of Mosul, apparent victims of an intimidation campaign by insurgents against Iraq's fledgling security forces. Asked about their demand for the election to be postponed, President George W. Bush, at his vacation home in Texas, said, "The Iraqi Election Commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would hope they'd go forward in January." But the country's deputy prime minister told an audience Friday in Wales that sticking to the election timetable would be difficult because of the security crisis. As a sign of the worsening situation, authorities also confirmed four Nepalese guards were killed and 12 others wounded in a rocket attack Thursday on their camp in Baghdad's Green Zone. Strong explosions were heard Friday night from the outskirts of the embattled capital. The extremist Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the Green Zone attack in a Web posting. The same group claimed responsibility for killing 12 Nepalese construction workers last August. In Fallujah, insurgents ambushed U.S. troops as they entered a home during house-to-house searches in the former militant bastion, killing two Marines and wounding three others, the U.S. military said Friday. Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said only about half the buildings in the city had been cleared despite the collapse of organized insurgent resistance there. In Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, U.S. officials said six bodies were found Friday, bringing the number discovered there over the past two days to 21. In all, 41 bodies have been discovered in the past week. Eleven of the 41 have been identified as members of the Iraqi security services, apparent targets of insurgents who rose up across the city this month in support of guerrillas fighting in Fallujah. The city's entire 5,000-member police force disintegrated during the uprising, and Iraqi authorities had to rush in reinforcements from Baghdad and Kurdish-run areas of the north to fill the gap. "It's a continued campaign of threats, intimidation and murder by insurgents to spread fear into the public," Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a military spokesman in Mosul, said of the assassinations. "Their campaign has been directed at what appears to be Iraqi security forces." Hastings said that since the Mosul uprising "there's been accelerated and very deliberate attacks on Iraqi security forces. South of Baghdad, U.S., British and Iraqi forces raided suspected insurgent strongholds around the cities of Latifiyah and Mahmoudiyah, arresting about 70 men suspected of launching attacks in the area. The raids were part of "Operation Plymouth Rock," launched Tuesday against insurgents operating between the capital and Shiite shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf. Multinational commanders hope to close off escape routes for insurgents trying to escape from Fallujah. With violence showing little sign of abating, opposition to holding elections on Jan. 30 has been growing, especially among Sunni Arab politicians. Sunni clerics have called on Sunnis to abstain from voting, and politicians fear that a successful boycott could deprive the new government of legitimacy.