IRAQ: Insurgents overran a police post near Saddam Hussein's home town yesterday, hauled 12 men outside and shot them in a dramatic show of force ahead of next month's elections.
The dawn massacre in Tikrit, where the guerrillas also blew up the police station, was the bloodiest in a spate of attacks in Iraq's Sunni minority heartlands north of Baghdad; at least five other policemen were killed and several National Guards. In Samarra, US forces banned cars from the streets after an attack on a police station and two attacks on US troops. A suicide car bomber failed to assassinate a National Guard general in Baghdad.
Outgoing US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell said the US "cannot allow murderers and terrorists" to deny the Iraqi people their right to vote and pledged to carry on with the January 30th ballot.
Meanwhile, a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it had tried to kill Iraqi Shia leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, according to an Internet statement. Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq , survived a suicide car bombing on Monday.
"Hakim, we tell you that if the arrow has failed to strike you, there are other arrows in our pouch," the statement said.
In another setback for the vote, the most prominent party from Saddam's long dominant Sunni minority pulled out of the election on Monday, saying violence in Sunni areas meant the vote could not be fair. - (Reuters)