BAGHDAD, 27 December 2004 — Iraq’s election body rejected a suggestion in Washington it adjust the results of next month’s vote to benefit the Sunni minority if low turnout in Sunni areas means Shiites win an exaggerated majority in the new assembly.
Meanwhile, 14 people, including a politician, were killed in a rash of ambushes and explosions yesterday as persistent violence dogged the run-up to the polls. Three US soldiers were also wounded in a bomb attack on their patrol in Mosul, just days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a US base in the main northern city.
Speaking of “unacceptable” interference, Electoral Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said: “Who wins, wins. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be in the election.”
US diplomats in Baghdad, at pains to keep their role in the election discreet, declined comment on a New York Times report from Washington which said Sunnis might be granted extra seats if the community’s vote was judged to have been too low.
US officials have expressed concern that if the ballot on Jan. 30 fails to reflect Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic mix due to violence and boycotts in Sunni areas, then the assembly will lack legitimacy. But any attempt to fix the proportion of seats going to the main groups in advance could have the same effect.
“The Americans are expressing their views and those aren’t always the same as the commission’s,” Ayar said.
“But the commission is absolutely independent. It is not acceptable for anyone to interfere in our business.”
Some leaders among Sunni Arabs, a 20-percent minority who dominated the country under Saddam Hussein and before, have called for the election to be put off because violence in the north and west will make it hard for Sunnis to vote.
The head of the influential Committee of Muslim Scholars said his fellow Sunnis had nothing to lose by acting on threats to boycott the elections.
“Iraq’s Sunni Muslims would lose nothing by not taking part in the drafting of the country’s constitution,” Sheikh Hareth Al-Dhari said late Saturday.
“Once liberated the people have the right to reassess a constitution that came into being in the shadow of occupation.”
He said he was visited by Iraqi politicians with ties to Washington to try to convince him to moderate his opposition to the elections.
The New York Times said Shiite leaders had been approached about the idea. Shiites would be reluctant to see the minority shut out of power if that means more violence, like the twin suicide car bombs that rocked their holy cities a week ago.
The daily litany of violence continued yesterday, with seven members of a single family killed when a bomb blast in the Shiite holy city of Karbala leveled their home.
Just two family members survived — an elderly woman who escaped with light injuries, and a seven-year-old girl who was out of the house at the time, police spokesman Rahman Meshari said.
Earlier, two people were arrested in the Karbala area — one of whom was found with 3,000 mortar shells and the second with explosives detonators, said police in the city where a bomb killed 14 people a week ago.
A politician critical of Syria, a civil defense force officer and one of his assistants were gunned down in shootings in the Baghdad area, officials said.
Mohammed Abdul-Hussein from the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation died instantly when three masked gunmen opened fire as he left home, said the organization’s leader Mithal Alussi.
Alussi, who blamed the former ruling Baath party and Syrian intelligence agents for the killing, and his party were recently expelled from a wider political coalition after he made a trip to Israel.
Further north, a father and son were killed in a roadside bombing in the refinery town of Baiji, police said. A Turkish truck driver was also killed by armed men as he passed through the city.
Islamist group Ansar Al-Sunna posted footage on its website that showed a masked man identified as Abu Omar Al-Mosuli hugging his comrades and bidding them farewell before heading off to carry out the attack on the Marez base, that killed 22, including 14 US military personnel.
Another scene in the video, whose authenticity was not immediately possible to verify, showed a plume of white smoke that looks like the explosion at the mess hall.
He was able to infiltrate the base “through a breach in the perimeter fence ... during a changing of the guard, following prolonged surveillance,” said the statement read by one of the militants.
If the video turns out to be genuine, it will further embarrass US commanders already facing criticism over the security breach that led to the deadliest single attack on the United States in Iraq.
In Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul vowed Saturday to “mobilize all our forces” after NTV news aired footage of an apparent hostage identifying himself as one of Turkey’s richest men, Kahraman Sadikoglu. “We will do whatever is necessary. We hope he is alive,” Gul was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
There was no indication either on who Sadikoglu’s kidnappers were or whether they had any demands, but some media reports suggested the militants had asked for a ransom of $25 million.
In Baghdad, the Defense Ministry said National Guard forces had killed 26 insurgents in southern Baghdad after the troops were ambushed. It was not clear when precisely the incident occurred. Another 11 militants were killed in a battle around apartment blocks in Iskandariya, south of the capital.
In Kirkuk, the US military said National Guards arrested 41 people suspected of belonging to Ansar Al-Sunnah or a group led by Al-Qaeda ally Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.
“In response to an intelligence breakthrough, an Iraqi National Guard platoon took action against an Ansar al-Sunnah cell and an Tawhid Wal-Jihad cell operating in Kirkuk on Dec. 23,” the statement said, giving no further details.
