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(02/24/05 5:00am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Wednesday he was forming a broad coalition to fight for the post of prime minister after Iraq's dominant Shiite political party nominated a conservative candidate.\nThe haggling over the new government came against the backdrop of more violence. A car bomb killed two people and wounded 14 in the northern city of Mosul, and a U.S. soldier was killed in a separate bomb attack north of Baghdad, officials said.\nAllawi, a secular Shiite, skirted criticism of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who was nominated Tuesday by the United Iraqi Alliance as its candidate for prime minister. The decision made al-Jaafari the overwhelming favorite for the post.\nWhen asked if he feared that al-Jaafari's alliance could impose Islamic rule, Allawi responded that he opposed the creation of any form of Islamic government.\n"We are liberal powers and we believe in a liberal Iraq and not an Iraq governed by political Islamists. But as a person, he is an honorable man, fighter and a good brother," Allawi said.\nAllawi would not provide details of his proposed coalition.\n"There are other lists and other brothers in smaller lists which won the elections, and we are working with some of those lists to form a national Iraqi democratic coalition which believes in Iraq and its principles," Allawi said at a news conference, flanked by two interim ministers who are members of his secular party, The Iraqi List.\nKurdish parties have also weighed in with their own demands for top jobs, including the post of president.\nAl-Jaafari is one of two interim vice presidents and leader of a religious party that fought Saddam Hussein.\nIn order to take the premiership, al-Jaafari must build a coalition to gain agreement from Kurds and others on the presidency and candidates for Cabinet posts before seeking the support of a majority of the National Assembly elected Jan. 30.\nAl-Jaafari is "a man I can work with, but to discuss who will be the prime minister of Iraq, this still needs more time," Kurdish Interim Vice President Rowsch Nouri Shaways told reporters. "We aim to get high rank in the government institutions. We aim to get one of the top positions and we aim to participate in the Council of Ministers, suitable with our percentage in the elections."\nKurdish parties, which won 75 seats in the 275-seat national assembly, want Jalal Talabani, a secular Sunni Kurd and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, to be Iraq's next president.\nThe Shiite Muslim clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance won 140 seats, while Allawi's secular Shiite Iraqi List party won 40 seats. Nine other parties divided the remaining 20 seats.\nAccording to the interim constitution adopted last year under the U.S. occupation, parliament must elect a president and two vice presidents by a two-thirds majority, or 182 seats. The three must then unanimously choose a prime minister subject to assembly approval.\nThere is no timetable for the assembly to convene, and al-Jaafari and his alliance must agree with other elected parties on who will fill the three posts and the Cabinet. Even then, the prime minister has a month to name his Cabinet before the assembly vote.\nAl-Jaafari's selection on Tuesday came after former Washington ally Ahmad Chalabi dropped out of the race following three days of round-the-clock bargaining. Al-Jaafari has been seen as having close ties to Iran's ruling clergy, though he denies any links to a government that President Bush has said is part of an "axis of evil."\nFor al-Jaafari, 58, to succeed, he'll have to meet conflicting demands from Kurds, Sunni Arabs and even Islamic hard-liners within his alliance\nIraq's secular Kurds and many Sunnis worry that al-Jaafari will try to impose his Dawa Party's brand of conservative Islam on the country, particularly because the assembly will be charged with writing a new constitution.
(02/23/05 4:00am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Interim Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen as his Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister Tuesday after Ahmad Chalabi dropped his bid, senior alliance officials said.\nAl-Jaafari's selection means he likely will lead Iraq's first democratically elected government in 50 years. But first he has to be approved by a coalition that likely will include the Kurds, and then he must be approved by a majority of the newly elected National Assembly.\nPressure from within the ranks of the United Iraqi Alliance, which won Iraq's landmark Jan. 30 election, forced the withdrawal of Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon favorite, said Hussein al-Moussawi from the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella group for 38 Shiite parties.\nAl-Jaafari said dealing with insurgents and re-establishing security would be the first task of his government if he becomes prime minister. \n"The security situation is the first matter we will address," he said.\nSome of Chalabi's aides, including Qaisar Witwit, suggested he was being offered the post of deputy prime minister in charge of economic and security affairs. When asked about such a deal, Chalabi said simply, "We will see."\nChalabi said he dropped out of the race "for the unity of the alliance." He would not say if he had been offered a post in the new government.\nUntil Chalabi agreed to withdraw, the 140 members of the alliance had planned to decide between the two in a secret ballot Tuesday.\nThe decision came after three days of round-the-clock negotiations by senior members of the clergy-backed alliance, which emerged from the election with a 140-seat majority in the 275-member National Assembly, or parliament.\nThe office of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, confirmed that Chalabi had withdrawn his bid to be prime minister.\n"Chalabi announced his withdrawal, and everyone agreed on al-Jaafari. Then Chalabi declared his support to al-Jaafari," said Haytham al Husaini, a top al-Hakim aide.\nSCIRI, the main group making up the alliance, tried for days to persuade Chalabi to quit the race, some of its senior officials said.\nAl-Jaafari's only other likely opponent for the post would be interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who was nominated for the job by his group. The Iraqi List got only 14 percent of the vote in the election.\nAl-Jaafari would not say if he had approached Allawi with an offer so he would drop out.\n"Whether someone is a member of the alliance or not doesn't mean they don't have the opportunity to play a role in this new government," al-Jaafari said.\nThe United Iraqi Alliance took 48 percent of the vote last month but needs to form a coalition with smaller parties to form the new government.\nKurdish parties, who won 26 percent, have indicated in the past they would support the Shiite candidate for prime minister in return for support for their candidate for the presidency.\nThe assembly must approve candidates for president and two vice presidents by a two-thirds majority. The president and vice presidents, in turn, will nominate a prime minister, who must be approved by a simple majority of the assembly.\nThe assembly also will draft a constitution.\nA date for the parliament's opening has not been set.\nThe conservative Al-Jaafari, a 58-year-old family doctor, is the main spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party, which waged a bloody campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime in the late 1970s. Saddam crushed the campaign in 1982, and Dawa based itself in Iran.\nIn an interview with The Associated Press last week, he said calling for the immediate withdrawal of coalition troops would be a "mistake" given the lack of security in Iraq.\nThe secular Chalabi is a former exile leader who heavily promoted the idea that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He later fell out with some key members of the Bush administration over allegations that he passed secrets to Iran.
(02/18/05 4:06am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's electoral commission Thursday certified the results of the Jan. 30 elections and allocated 140 National Assembly seats to the United Iraqi Alliance, giving the Shiite-dominated party a majority in the new parliament.\nThe certification sets the stage for the first meeting of the National Assembly, which will have 10 months to draft a new constitution.\nThe assembly's first order of business will be to elect a president and two vice presidents to largely ceremonial positions. The assembly then will approve a prime minister nominated by the president and vice presidents.\nThe Shiite-led alliance's majority in the assembly had been expected, based on projections from the final results announced Sunday. The clergy-backed ticket won 48 percent of the vote and the Kurdish alliance received 26 percent of the vote, giving it 75 seats. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who supported strong ties to Washington, won 14 percent.\nA redistribution of the votes from the 99 parties that did not win enough support to get parliament seats gave the Shiite alliance control of more than half of the assembly's 275 seats, even though they received slightly less than half the vote.\nIt appeared only 12 party groupings would take seats.\nEven though the United Iraqi Alliance has a majority of seats in the assembly, it still needs partners. A two-thirds majority is needed to select a president and two vice presidents, who will in turn choose a prime minister to run the day-to-day government.\nThe current appointed government will now set a date for installing the new elected government. There has been no indication of how long that might take, and the timing will depend on back-room dealmaking among the parties.\nThe certified results were announced after a deadline to file complaints expired Wednesday. Farid Ayar, a spokesman for the election commission, told Al-Arabiya television that 47 complaints were filed and most of them were resolved.\nAbdul Hussein Hindawi, the head of election commission, said, "The commission received a number of complaints, and investigated it carefully and sorted it out."\nCarlos Valenzuela, the chief U.N. election expert in Iraq, said the election results were "the definition of difficult."\n"The elections were not perfect. They were never meant to be, but they were extremely good elections," he said.\nTop Shiite politicians have agreed to choose their nominee for prime minister through a secret ballot, expected to take place Friday, to decide a two-man race between Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmad Chalabi.\nThe contrast between the two candidates is stark and reveals a division within the clergy-endorsed alliance, made up of 10 major political parties and various allied smaller groups.\n"The talks are still going on among the members of the alliance to choose the suitable person for the post of prime minister," al-Jaafari said Thursday. "I am happy that everyone who thinks himself eligible is free and can be nominated."\nA close aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite Muslims, said the alliance's leaders will visit the cleric's office in Najaf to get his blessing for their choice. In the event they cannot agree, al-Sistani will make the final decision, the aide said.\nKurdish parties apparently have agreed to support the alliance's candidate for prime minister in return for the largely ceremonial presidency. But officials said they would not accept a theocracy.\n"We will reject and we won't allow the establishment of a theocratic state; we want separation between religion and state," said Noshirwan Mustafa, an aide to Jalal Talabani, the Sunni Kurd and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who is expected to become president.\nThe government that does take power will face the tough challenge of quelling a violent insurgency, largely being waged by Sunni extremists.
(02/17/05 3:58am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Leaders of the Shiite political alliance that won Iraq's election failed to agree on a single nominee for prime minister Wednesday, with the two candidates insisting on a vote by the alliance's 140 parliamentarians, officials said.\nAfter meeting for hours with Shiite cleric and politician Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, members of the United Iraqi Alliance agreed to hold a secret ballot to choose between two former exiles, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmad Chalabi, said Ali Hashim al-Youshaa, an alliance leader who attended the meetings. The vote is expected Friday.\nBoth candidates were expected to present their political agendas and priorities to alliance members before the vote, al-Youshaa said.\nThe failure to reach a consensus revealed cracks within the coalition, which consists of 10 major parties backed by Shiite religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. But Hayder al-Mousawi, Chalabi's spokesman, denied there was a serious problem.\n"No way is there a division inside the alliance. Everybody agreed on adhering to whatever results the internal elections will reach," he said.\nA close aide to al-Sistani, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance leaders will visit his office in Najaf to get his blessing for their choice for prime minister. If they cannot agree, al-Sistani will decide.\nIf provisional results stand, the alliance, made up of religious Shiite parties, will have 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly. At least three other party coalitions that won seats in the assembly had joined the alliance's bloc, adding eight more seats, al-Youshaa said. All 148 prospective parliamentarians will vote in the secret ballot, officials said.\nAl-Jaafari leads the Dawa Party, known for its close ties to Iran.\nThe Kurdish parties have apparently agreed to support the alliance's candidate for prime minister in return for the presidency.\nThe race to be the Shiite's pick for prime minister narrowed Tuesday, when Adel Abdul Mahdi, who has close ties to Iran, dropped out.\nAl-Hakim, who also has close ties to Iran, has said he is not interested in the prime minister's post.\nThe competition for the prime minister's post came as the Iraqi Electoral Commission's deadline to file complaints approached. Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said 25 complaints have been filed so far.\n"Most of them are asking for a recount of the votes and we are looking into those requests," he said. "We tell them that we were very accurate in counting the ballots. You know, they just want more votes."\nHe said he expected the commission to certify the vote totals Thursday, when the official allocation of National Assembly seats would be announced. The assembly picks the president and two vice presidents and drafts a new constitution.\nOnce the results are certified, the present government must set a timetable for installing the new government. It is not known how long that might take, and it will depend on back-room deal making among the parties.\nThe clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance got 48 percent of the vote for the National Assembly, the Kurdish alliance got 26 percent and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who supported strong ties to Washington, 14 percent. Nine other parties also won seats.
(11/22/04 4:05am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi authorities set Jan. 30 as the date for the nation's first election since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and pledged that voting would take place throughout the country despite rising violence and calls by Sunni clerics for a boycott.\nFarid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said voting would push ahead even in areas still wracked by violence -- including Fallujah, Mosul and other parts of the volatile Sunni Triangle.\nThe vote for the 275-member National Assembly is seen as a major step toward building democracy after years of Saddam's tyranny.\nBut the violence, which has escalated this month with the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah, has raised fears voting will be nearly impossible in insurgency-torn regions -- or that Sunni Arabs, angry at the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown, will reject the election.\nIf either takes place, it could undermine the vote's legitimacy.\nAyar insisted that "no Iraqi province will be excluded because the law considers Iraq as one constituency, and therefore it is not legal to exclude any province."\nTo bolster Iraq's democracy, 19 creditor nations agreed Sunday to write off 80 percent of the $42 billion that Iraq owes them. U.S. and Iraqi troops have been clearing the last of the resistance from Fallujah, the main rebel bastion stormed Nov. 8 in hopes of breaking the back of the insurgency before the election.\nIn Fallujah, Marine Maj. Jim West said Sunday that U.S. troops have found nearly 20 "atrocity sites" where insurgents imprisoned, tortured and murdered hostages. West said troops found rooms containing knives and black hoods, "many of them blood-covered."\nThe storming of Fallujah has heightened tensions throughout Sunni Arab areas, triggering clashes in Mosul, Beiji, Samarra, Ramadi and elsewhere.\nIn Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, insurgents ambushed an Iraqi National Guard patrol Sunday, killing eight guardsmen and injuring 18 others, police said.\nU.S. forces conducted a raid to capture a "high value target" associated with Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Haqlaniyah, 135 miles northwest of the capital, a U.S. spokesman said Sunday. Six people were detained, although the military did not say whether the target was among them.\nWitnesses said U.S. troops raided a Sunni mosque in Haqlaniyah, arresting its cleric -- Douraid Fakhry -- and detaining dozens of residents in nearby homes. The U.S. military denied that a mosque was raided in the area.\nSouth of Baghdad, a convoy of Iraqi National Guard and police came under attack by insurgents armed with small-arms fire, rocket propelled grenades and roadside bombs in Latifiyah, the U.S. military said. There were several Iraqi casualties.\nTo the north, American soldiers in Mosul on Sunday discovered two more bodies, including one of an Iraqi Army soldier, near a site where the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers were found a day earlier, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings with Task Force Olympia.\nThe nine, all shot in the head execution-style, were identified as soldiers based at al-Kisik, 30 miles west of Mosul. Four decapitated bodies, still unidentified, were found in Mosul Thursday.\nIn an Internet statement posted Sunday, al-Zarqawi's terror group, al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed it killed 17 Iraqi National Guardsmen from al-Kisik. The report couldn't be independently verified. Hastings said he had no report of missing Iraqi guardsmen.\nFour large explosions shook the area near Baghdad's U.S.-guarded Green Zone -- a frequent target of insurgent mortars and rockets -- after sundown Sunday. There was no word on any damage or casualties.\nOn Sunday, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office announced that his cousin, Ghazi Allawi, 75, has been released by his kidnappers, nearly two weeks after he was abducted along with his wife and pregnant daughter-in-law. The prime minister's office had no other details on his release.\nThe two women were released on Nov. 15. Their kidnappers, who identified themselves as the militant group Ansar al-Jihad, had threatened to behead them unless all Iraqi detainees were released and the siege of Fallujah halted.\nThe clerical leadership of the country's Shiite community, believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's nearly 26 million people, has been clamoring for an election since the April 2003 collapse of the Saddam regime, and voting is expected to go smoothly in northern areas ruled by the Kurds, the most pro-American group.\nHowever, Sunni Arabs, estimated at about 20 percent of the population, fear domination by the Shiites. Sunni clerics have called for a boycott of the vote because of the Fallujah attack.\nBut Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said it's important that the elections be held as promised.\n"If they are delayed, it would be a sign that the chaos, terror, can succeed in destroying whatever chance we have for democracy in Iraq," he said.\nThe government has launched a campaign against some hardline Sunni clerics accused of fueling the insurgency or allowing weapons to be hidden in their mosques. On Friday, Iraqi and U.S. forces raided Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque -- one of the country's most important Sunni mosques.\nDuring the January election, Iraqis will choose a National Assembly which will draft a new constitution. If the constitution is ratified, another election will be held in December 2005.
(12/09/02 3:46am)
CAIRO, Egypt -- al Qaeda threatened faster, harder strikes against the United States and Israel in a statement attributed to the group that appeared on a militant web site Sunday.\n"The Jewish Crusader coalition will not be safe anywhere from the fighters' attacks," the audio statement said, using a term common among Islamic militants for what they see as a U.S.-Israeli alliance.\n"We will hit the most vital centers and we will strike against its strategic operations with all possible means."\nThe statement was attributed to al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. The site, which has posted previous statements attributed to the terror network, included what appeared to be a picture of Abu Ghaith taken from video.\nThe Web site also posted a text version of the statement.\nThe whereabouts of Abu Ghaith, along with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, have been a mystery since the network was chased out of its haven in Afghanistan by U.S. bombing following the Sept. 11 attacks.\n"We will chase the enemy with terrifying weapons," the statement said. "We have to widen our fighting fronts and conduct more concentrated and faster operations ... so (the enemy) feels unsafe and unstable on land, air and sea."\nThe statement also said a purported al Qaeda claim of responsibility for the Nov. 28 attacks on Israelis in Kenya was genuine. That claim was posted on several other Islamic sites last week.\nThe attacks in Israel included a hotel bombing that killed 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and the bombers, and a botched attempt to shoot down an Israeli charter plane.\nSunday's statement said al Qaeda does not usually claim responsibility for attacks, but would do so "according to the relevant circumstances."\nU.S. officials have said they considered the claim of responsibility for the Kenya attacks to be credible.\nTerrorism experts believe al Qaeda has made use of the Internet, which enables people to communicate cheaply, widely and anonymously. It has been difficult to trace and confirm postings attributed to al Qaeda that appear periodically on several sites.