Iraq's former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Sunday gunmen tried to assassinate him in Shiite Islam's holiest shrine, forcing him to cut short an election campaign visit pursued by an angry mob. "It appeared to be an assassination attempt," Allawi said; 60-70 men in black, armed with guns and knives, set upon his small party as he prayed at the Imam Ali mosque. One took aim but dropped his gun, said Allawi, who is mounting a strong challenge to the ruling Shiite Islamist bloc in the run-up to the December 15 parliamentary vote. Police said Allawi's group was attacked by men with batons and fled the shrine under a hail of rocks, tomatoes and shoes.| Gawd, I love it when that happens! |
| "I'd call that a hint as to who was behind it... |
| "He's looking for his gun..." |
| Good idea, as long as he also cracks down on anti-gummint bad guyz. Civil states don't have police death squads... |
Separately, Iraqi forces said they killed 20 rebels in a counter-offensive in the town of Al-Adhaim, 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, security sources said, with another 75 suspected insurgents arrested.
The U.S. military announced Sunday the completion of Operation Shank in the provincial capital of Ramadi, resulting in the "detention of four suspected members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq." The U.S. military said the operation was being carried out to make the area secure ahead of the parliamentary elections. But Tareq al-Hashemi, secretary general of Iraq's largest Sunni political organization, called on the U.S. to cease massive operations in Iraq and set up a timetable for troop withdrawal. Hashemi was speaking in Istanbul after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, designed to convince Sunnis to take part in Iraq's December 15 ballots. "We were very clear in tabling our request and demand that massive military operations should be ceased immediately because we are under the impression that innocent people are being victimized by these operations all the time," Hashemi told reporters.
As the legislative elections draw nearer, an Iraqi electoral official said nearly 150 candidates could be barred from running due to their links to Saddam's Baath Party.
In Kuwait, meanwhile, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said that Syria is now "more disciplined" in stopping insurgents crossing into Iraq after months of accusations that Damascus did little to stop them. Syrian authorities have recently erected four-meter high sand berms on some parts of the common border, Jabr said. He said Iraqi authorities have not arrested any alleged insurgents near the Syrian border for the past two weeks.