US-led forces in Iraq pressed on with aggressive raids against Sunni Muslim insurgents in towns southwest of Baghdad today, in what is seen as race against time to quell rebellion in time for an election in January.
The biggest political party from the once dominant Sunni minority, its heartlands simmering with unrest, called for voting to be postponed, saying emergency laws and the rules for the January 30th ballot were unfair.
But, unlike other Sunni leaders, the Iraqi Islamist Party and seven smaller political and tribal groupings made no explicit threat to call on Sunnis to boycott the poll.
Calling for "national reconciliation" with Shi'ites and the Kurds, they said in a statement: "We confirm our participation in the political process and faith in the electoral process."
Support among ordinary Sunnis for the insurgency blamed on loyalists of Saddam Hussein's old regime and on international Islamists is hard to assess. But many were aggrieved by the storming of the rebel Sunni city of Falluja earlier this month.
"Everyone recognises that it will be a fight to the elections in those provinces where the insurgents are active," US Lieutenant General David Petraeus said at a passing out parade for the latest Iraqi troops he is charged with training.
"There's still a good deal of fighting to be done."
Training Iraqi forces is a priority for a US command eager to reduce the 138,000 troops it has in Iraq and for Iraqi leaders who see stability depending partly on ending the anger many Iraqis feel at the occupation.
Those efforts suffered a blow this month in the northern city of Mosul when thousands of newly appointed Iraqi police melted away in the face of a Sunni Arab insurgency while US forces were concentrating their efforts on Falluja.
The violence in Iraq's third biggest city has taken on an ethnic slant, notably since US commanders rushed in units of Kurdish militia from the nearby mountains, angering local Arabs.
Today, the Kurdish deputy provincial governor said he survived an assassination attempt when gunmen opened fire on his motorcade, killing a bodyguard. Gunmen also ambushed a convoy of Kurdish militiamen as they travelled to Mosul, killing three.