BAGHDAD7, 28 January 2005 — Insurgents unleashed a wave of attacks across Iraq yesterday, killing at least 30 people in their bid to scare voters away from countrywide elections on Sunday. They also warned people they would attack those involved in the election even after voting was over. To drive home their point, a terrorist group posted a video on the Internet of their murder of a poll candidate from the party of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
After suffering their worst losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion — 31 soldiers killed in a helicopter crash and six in other operations on Wednesday — US forces lost another two men yesterday.
Samarra, the rebel town in the so-called Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad, saw the worst carnage. A double suicide attack killed 11 people after clashes in the city between Iraqi and US forces against insurgents claimed five lives. The insurgent stronghold has stubbornly rebuffed Iraqi and US efforts to restore order ahead of the election.
A first suicide bomber rammed an Iraqi Army patrol near a building to be used as a polling station, said Lt. Col. Iyad Tarek of the Iraqi police. Security forces sealed off the sector to evacuate victims when a second car burst on to the scene from the direction of a nearby hospital. Eight soldiers and three civilians were killed. Seven other people were injured.
Earlier, four Iraqi soldiers and a civilian were killed in clashes between security forces and insurgents in the city. Similar clashes in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, left one dead. The Iraqi military was also the target of a bomb attack in the so-called Triangle of Death south of Baghdad that left five dead and 15 wounded.
A roadside bomb exploded as a military convoy passed local people selling cattle on a main road outside the city of Mahmudiyah.
A car bomb attack on a provincial government headquarters in Baquba, north of the capital, killed five people including at least one police officer, and wounded seven people.
The Iraqi government has canceled all leave for security forces through the election and thrown them into the protection of polling stations and the public. The two days before and two days after the election will be a national holiday and a daily curfew will be extended.
But the measures have failed to ease fears of an insurgent onslaught on voting day. Ansar Al-Sunna said in a website statement: “We have warned you not to go to the centers of this sordid comedy, called voting bureaux... we renew our warning. They will be the targets of the Mujahedeen.”
Even as uncertainty surrounded the vote in Iraq, expatriate Iraqi voters cast their ballots in Sydney today.
Amid tight security at a converted furniture warehouse, young children mingled with elderly Kurdish women. About two dozen people jostled to be among the first to vote at 7 a.m.
— Additional input from agencies
