Security vital in Iraq before election, UN says
Baghdad The head of a United Nations team said Monday that better security in Iraq is vital so that people can vote in general elections as scheduled by Jan. 31
In southern Iraq, violence broke out when British troops tried to evict anti-coalition activists from a government-owned building.
A UN team met members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to discuss setting up an interim government ahead of a June 30 transfer of power from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqis, and plans for general elections after that.
In the southern city of Basra, British troops in riot gear fought with dozens of anti-coalition Iraqis who resisted eviction from a government-owned building. At least four Iraqis were injured. Two British soldiers suffered minor injuries, according to the Ministry of Defence in London.
The fighting came a day after U.S. soldiers in the northern city of Mosul shot and killed four suspected rebels, the military said.
On Sunday, gunmen fired on a convoy carrying a government minister near Mosul, and killed a Canadian and a Briton in another attack.
In Ottawa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday that the family of the slain Canadian had been contacted and arrangements were being made to transport his remains back to Canada. Marie-Christine Lilkoff said the family had asked the department not to release any other details.
She also said that Foreign Affairs was warning Canadians not to travel to Iraq and those there were advised to leave because of the dangerous and unpredictable security situation.
In Basra, the Iraqis threw stones and bricks at the British soldiers and set fire to tires in the streets. Associated Press Television News footage showed two soldiers with plastic shields and wooden batons struggling with an Iraqi man who grabbed one of their weapons.
One of the injured was seen lying on the ground before being carried away by his comrades. Blood poured from another protester's head. A freelance photographer working for Associated Press, Nabil al-Jurani, was wounded when he was shot in a leg with a rubber bullet by the soldiers.
In Baghdad, Carina Perelli, who led the UN team, told reporters after a two-hour meeting with Governing Council members that security is key.
“We need to make sure that between now and the 31st of January, there is a modicum of security that will make Iraqi people feel they can go to the polls, that they can run as candidates, without extreme fear,” Ms. Perelli said.
“We put the expertise and the experience of the UN at the disposition of the Iraqi people in terms of the assistance it might need in carrying out this process,” she said.
Her team arrived in Baghdad on Friday and will stay for several weeks. A second UN delegation, headed by top negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected in early April.
Ms. Perelli said the UN team, Governing Council and the coalition have to move quickly to meet the election deadline.
”If there is going to be an election on the 31st of January, then all the basic agreements need to be reached for the electoral frame no later than the end of May. Otherwise the date might be compromised,” she said.
Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, a Sunni member of the Governing Council, said many council members “spoke about elections and ways of protecting these elections and the mechanism that should be used in order for the election not to be fixed.”
Mr. Abdel-Hamid said the council should set up a committee comprised of Iraqis that will oversee the elections.
He said the goal is to conduct clean elections and “achieve the hopes of the Iraqi people, who have been deprived of elections for decades under a dictatorship.”
On Sunday in Baghdad, the U.S.-led coalition shut down a weekly newspaper run by followers of hardline Shia Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, saying its articles were increasing the threat of violence against occupation forces.
The attack earlier Sunday on the convoy of Iraq's Minister of Public Works, Nisreen Berwari, left the driver and a bodyguard dead and two others injured. The assault occurred when Mr. Berwari, who was not wounded, was returning to Mosul from a meeting in the city of Dohuk, a coalition spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, the bodies of four women, three men and a baby were found in a house in the northern city of Kirkuk, police chief Torhan Abdul Rahman said. The eight were shot to death about a month ago.
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