Iraq Sunni bloc ends poll boycott

Three killed in northern Iraq violence
Mosul, Iraq (AFP) Feb 25, 2010 - Three Iraqis, including two members of the tiny Kurdish Shabak minority, were gunned down in the main northern city of Mosul on Thursday, police said. Unidentified gunmen killed the two Shabaks in their electrical equipment store in the city centre before fleeing in a car, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Shabak community numbers about 30,000 people living in 35 villages in the province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital. Many want their villages to become part of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The community was persecuted under now executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime and after the US-led invasion of 2003 they were targeted on a number of occasions by Al-Qaeda. The third civilian was killed by gunmen in front of his home in the central Mosul neighbourhood of Al-Omal, police said. It was not immediately clear why the man was murdered. In November, New York-based Human Rights Watch warned that minorities in northern Iraq were the collateral victims of a conflict between Arabs and Kurds over who controls a number of disputed districts. In the past fortnight, eight Christians have been killed in the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7. Iraq said earlier on Thursday that it would set up an inquiry and boost security in Mosul in response to the attacks on Christians.

by Staff Writers
Baghdad (AFP) Feb 25, 2010
Iraq's leading Sunni Arab political bloc announced on Thursday that it will take part in next month's general election and urged its followers to turn out in numbers.

The about-face by the National Dialogue Front (NDF) comes just five days after it said it was withdrawing from the vote, only the second parliamentary poll since Saddam Hussein was ousted by a US-led invasion in 2003.

"We call on the Iraqi people to vote massively to avoid fraud, despite our reservations concerning the electoral process," Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni MP who has been barred from standing for re-election on the grounds of alleged links to the Baath party of now executed dictator Saddam Hussein, told AFP.

Mutlak, who was among 456 candidates who were barred, highlighted "the exclusion of candidates, which is hurting the legitimacy of the election."

On Saturday, the NDF had said that its 175 candidates would no longer stand in protest at what it said was Iranian interference in the poll.

However, electoral authorities told AFP the boycott was largely symbolic and had no official status because the deadline for parties to withdraw had passed and ballot papers had already been printed.

Mutlak was the main Sunni figure in Shiite former premier Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqiya list. His disqualification is a setback for Allawi's bid to unseat Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and hopes for reconciliation.

"We are concerned that the situation will deteriorate in the event that Iraqiya does not win, and we are sure that Iraqiya will not win if we do not participate," Mutlak said.

"That is why we decide to help our brothers in Iraqiya to be in first position in the elections and therefore to bring change to Iraq."

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Five dead, including three Christians, in Iraq attacks
Mosul, Iraq (AFP) Feb 23, 2010
Five people were killed, including three Christian men and a policeman, in the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, less than two weeks ahead of a nationwide general election. In the deadliest attack, a Christian man and his two sons were gunned down in their home, bringing to eight the total number of Christians murdered in the city, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad, ... read more

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