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Iraq to Close Borders Next Week to Thwart Attacks
Iraq to Close Borders Next Week to Thwart Attacks
Thu Feb 10, 2005 03:39 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....42&pageNumber=1
By Alister Bull and Mariam Karouny
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will seal its borders next week to prevent Shi'ite pilgrims flooding into the country, the government said on Thursday, in the latest emergency measure intended to thwart insurgent violence.
The borders will be closed between Feb. 17 and Feb. 22, in a move a government spokesman said was designed to coincide with the climax of Ashura, a major Shi'ite religious ceremony.
Insurgents kept up pressure on Iraqi security forces, killing at least 10 police in a fierce and protracted gunbattle near the town of Salman Pak, southeast of Baghdad, police sources said. Several people had been arrested, including three Iranians and two suspected insurgents from Saudi Arabia.
Millions of Shi'ites travel from across the region to holy sites in Iraq for Ashura, during which many parade and beat themselves in homage to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in 680 AD.
Suicide bombers attacked pilgrims last year in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing at least 170 people.
"During these dates people will flood to Iraq from neighboring countries because of Ashura, which will make it difficult to ensure the safety of Iraqis and the visitors," government spokesman Thaer al-Naqib told Reuters.
Naqib said foreign pilgrims should make sure they arrived before the borders closed.
The government, battling a raging insurgency, has adopted special laws that allow it to declare curfews, close borders and detain suspects without normal legal process.
Drivers trying to enter Iraq from Syria, Iran and Jordan say that many border crossings are already shut, meaning foreign Shi'ites will struggle to make the holy journey this year.
The move could contribute to tensions with Iran, from where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims enter Iraq each year.
CAR BOMB
At least eight Iraqi civilians died in militant attacks on Thursday, including three in a car bomb in central Baghdad which a U.S. army spokesman said might have been aimed at an American convoy that passed by shortly before.
He said there were no U.S. casualties but the explosion scattered tangled metal and wreckage across Tahrir Square, a major intersection lined with stalls and near large hotels.
South of the capital, police discovered the bodies of 20 drivers apparently killed by gunmen who ambushed them on the way to the southern city of Kut, a government source said. The attack is believed to have taken place on Wednesday.
Scores of Iraqis have been killed since the country's historic election on Jan. 30, which is expected to hand power to a coalition of Shi'ite Islamist groups.
An Iraqi group which says it is holding an Italian journalist hostage said it would free her if Italy announced within 48 hours that it would withdraw its 3,000 troops from Iraq, according to a Web statement on Thursday.
Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with the communist Rome newspaper Il Manifesto, was snatched in Baghdad last Friday.
It was not possible to verify the statement from the Jihad Organization. Last Friday it set a 72-hour deadline for Italy to remove its troops but two days later a statement purportedly from the same group said she would be released.
Iraq's Electoral Commission is making final checks on some 300 ballot boxes over the next two to three days and will release a final vote tally soon.
Partial results show the alliance of mainly Shi'ite Islamist parties, formed with Sistani's blessing, is well in the lead, as expected. A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is third.
The Shi'ite alliance says it will demand the post of Iraqi prime minister in the next government. The Kurds want their candidate, Jalal Talabani, to be president.
Much horse trading is already taking place behind the scenes. Allawi traveled to Kurdistan to meet Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party and Talabani's partner. He later told reporters that a partnership might be on the cards.
"We have been allies for a long time in our struggle against the regime and the issue of a coalition is possible," Allawi said, but stressed the process should be inclusive.
Many in the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the country under Saddam Hussein, stayed away from the polls, either because of violence or calls for a boycott from Sunni leaders.
Results are not yet in from several mainly Sunni provinces. But those from Salahadin, a mainly Sunni province that includes Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, indicate few Sunnis voted.
There are fears that Sunni exclusion from the political process could fuel the insurgency, which is mainly being waged by Sunni guerrillas.
(Additional reporting by Khaled al-Ramahi, Omar Anwar and Mussab Al-Khairalla in Baghdad, Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil))
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