Iraq: Police rounded up dozens of suspects yesterday after twin suicide car bombings on Sunday killed 66 people in Iraq's Shia holy cities, attacks that intensified fears of sectarian violence during elections on January 30th.
Preparing for the poll, officials staged a lottery to choose the order for parties and blocs to appear on the ballot paper, holding the event in a closely guarded building that was once part of Saddam Hussein's palace complex.
In Najaf, the scene of the deadlier of Sunday's co-ordinated attacks, the governor said police had seized 50 suspects. Police detained five more in Kerbala, the site of the other blast, but were cautious about saying they were close to the culprits.
A roadside bomb exploded yesterday in Kerbala, briefly raising concerns of a copy-cat strike. Four Iraqi passers-by were wounded, none of them seriously, local police said.
Najaf governor Adnan al-Zurfi, appointed by US authorities, gave reporters few details about those in custody, but said at least one held a passport from another Arab country.
The streets of Najaf were almost empty yesterday apart from frequent funeral processions, some passing close to where people continued to sift through the rubble of Sunday's blast.
The attacks in the cities, both sacred to Iraq's 60 per cent Shia Muslim majority, came six weeks before the election and appeared designed to provoke sectarian conflict.
Shias, oppressed for decades under Saddam and before, are widely expected to top the poll at the expense of Saddam's long-dominant Sunni minority.
In another attack on Sunday that sent an obvious message to the Electoral Commission and potential voters, gunmen shot dead three commission employees in a daylight ambush in Baghdad.
Electoral Commission officials and candidates gathering to choose the ballot order observed a minute's silence to remember those killed in the three attacks. As they met, gunmen in the north shot dead two members of a party set up by a former intelligence chief who turned against Saddam.
A ceremony in Baghdad yesterday to choose the order in which parties and blocs appear on the ballot was attended by more than 200 people clearly eager for the election. Polls show that about 80 per cent of Iraqis would like to vote.
Some 7,000 candidates are signed up to stand in the poll and some 6,000 voting stations, protected by local security forces and manned by Iraqi monitors, will be set up nationwide. - (Reuters)