Dec. 5, 05

BAGHDAD - Iraq's political leaders are well into their campaigns. Election posters plaster city streets. With 10 days left before the historic vote for a permanent parliament, militant moves to derail the process and U.S. and Iraqi government counterinsurgency efforts also are in full swing.

By Qassim Zein, AFP

Joint U.S.-Iraqi operations in insurgent hotspots including Anbar province are encountering increasing violence. On Thursday, a massive roadside bomb killed 10 Marines on foot patrol near Fallujah, a restive area that previously had been cleared of insurgent activity. In Baghdad, 19 Iraqi troops were killed in an ambush Saturday. Last week, a campaign worker putting up election posters in the northern city of Mosul was killed.

On Sunday, about a dozen people, some carrying clubs, tried to prevent former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi from entering a shrine in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Allawi said. "They were planning to kill the whole delegation, or at least me," he said after returning to Baghdad. The crowd dispersed after bodyguards fired in the air. Allawi, a secular Shiite parliament member running for re-election, was campaigning in the southern city. As interim prime minister, he ordered U.S. and Iraqi forces to capture Najaf from a radical Shiite cleric's militia in August 2004.

The latest violence, some of it claimed by top insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is similar to the upsurge in attacks that preceded the elections for a transitional government in January.

U.S. officials say the unrest is likely to get worse but it won't deter voters. "There are going to be horrific acts of violence, candidly, at the point in time where (Zarqawi) can get the most international media attention," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq, told reporters last week. "But on the 15th of December, there will be peaceful elections in Iraq."

He said U.S. and Iraqi forces plan to deploy more troops to conduct anti-insurgent operations.

An Internet statement attributed to the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of several dozen insurgent groups operating here, claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack on the Marines. But a Marine statement said Sunday that a video posted on the website, which is used by insurgents to claim attacks, was not last week's Fallujah incident. The bombing was the deadliest incident since 14 Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed Aug. 3 by a roadside bomb near Hadithah in western Iraq.

Despite the violence, Iraqi candidates are gearing up for the elections. The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, led by the ruling Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, is emerging as the front-runner.

But the alliance's image has been blemished recently by indications of detainee abuse by police squads. The government has launched an investigation to determine who is responsible for maltreatment of 173 prisoners discovered Nov. 12 in a basement bunker attached to the Interior Ministry, which is controlled by SCIRI.

Some voters are looking for leaders who focus less on religious allegiances than on uniting Iraqis. Others will follow the recommendations of their mosques.

"No more sectarianism," says Laith Fiaq, 55, a civil servant, as he sips mint tea at the Karrada Nights teahouse in central Baghdad. "I'd like to see parties in power that are less religious. They don't work in dividing Iraq, they work toward bringing us together."

Courting the secular vote: Allawi, who heads a coalition of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and Ahmad Chalabi, a onetime Pentagon favorite who left the United Iraqi Alliance to form a rival coalition.

In January, thousands of Shiites voted for the SCIRI-led alliance after revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa, or religious edict. Over the weekend, Sistani's office announced that the reclusive spiritual leader is urging followers to support religious candidates in this month's election. The instructions fall short of a fatwa but could still sway Shiites, who are the majority here.

Powerful coalitions such as the United Iraqi Alliance will have to contend with a new electoral system. Elections will be held within 18 provincial districts, each with an allotted portion of the 275-seat legislature. The system is designed to allow smaller parties larger representation, says Hassan Bazzad, a Baghdad political analyst and former Baghdad University professor.

The coalitions also will face a reinvigorated Sunni electorate. Sunnis, who largely boycotted January's vote, are likely to show up Dec. 15 in large numbers in Sunni-dominated provinces, as they did during the constitutional referendum in October.

Yonadam Kanna, secretary general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, says the real test will come when the rival parties get down to forming a government, including naming a prime minister, president and ministers.

In January, the Shiite alliance won 140 of the National Assembly's 275 seats. It took nearly three more months of political wrangling with rival alliances to form the government, Kanna says. The alliance is expected to win about 20 fewer seats, giving them even less political muscle, he says.

"That will be where we either succeed as a government," Kanna says, "or face a crisis."

Contributing: Wire reports