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Final Iraqi election results are delayed
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi officials said Wednesday that the announcement of final results from landmark national elections will be delayed because the election commission must recount votes from about 300 ballot boxes.
Final results from the Jan. 30 election were to be announced on Thursday. But spokesman Farid Ayar said the deadline would slip due to the need for a recount. "We don't know when this will finish," he said. "This will lead to a little postponement in announcing the results." Ayar would not say where the 300 ballot boxes had come from. No new partial results have been releases since Monday for the voting for the 275-member National Assembly, 18 provincial councils and a regional parliament for the Kurdish self-governing region in the north. Partial results released Monday showed a coalition of Kurdish parties in second place — raising the possibility that Shiites and Kurds might share power and even open the way for a Kurdish president. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani already has announced his candidacy for president. The ticket of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, is in third place among the 111 candidate lists. A Shiite-dominated ticket endorsed by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with about half the votes, followed by the coalition of Kurdish parties.
In Basra, Abdul Hussein al-Basri, the correspondent of Al-Hurra TV station, and his son were both killed Wednesday in the city's Maqal area, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Nazim al Moussawi, a spokesman for the local government administration. Launched in February 2004 Al-Hurra, or The Free, was tailored for Arab audiences to compete with other regional stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. Some Muslim clerics have denounced the TV station as propaganda. US President Bush said it was created to "cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world." Al-Basri was also a member of the political office of the Islamic Dawa Party, an influential Shiite movement, and the editor of a local newspaper in Basra, Iraq's second largest city. He also served as the head of the press office at Basra City Council, al-Moussawi said. Journalists have come under fire repeatedly in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists reported in January that Iraq was the deadliest place in the world for journalists last year with 49 deaths. Meanwhile, the U.S. military on Wednesday announced the deaths of two more American soldiers A military statement said one U.S. soldier died of a gunshot wound at a logistical support area in Balad, north of Baghdad. The soldier, from 1st Corps Support Command, suffered a gunshot wound on Tuesday and was pronounced dead at the scene. Camp Anaconda in Balad, is 50 miles north of Baghdad. The second soldier, assigned to Task Force Freedom, was shot and killed on Sunday while on patrol in Mosul, the U.S. command said. No further details were released on either soldier pending notification of kin.
In Baghdad, gunfire rattled the area around notorious Haifa street and thick smoke could be seen rising from the area. There was no report from U.S. or Iraqi officials. Residents of the area, located on the western bank of the Tigris river, said they heard automatic weapons fire and a series of explosions in early afternoon. In Iraq's oil-rich north, saboteurs set off explosives Wednesday at a gas pipeline in Fatha district, 15 miles north of Beiji, setting it on fire, officials said. The pipeline runs to the northern city of Kirkuk, an official from the Northern Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity. Beiji is 155 miles north of Baghdad. One policeman was injured as workers put out the blaze, which was expected to affect the production of electricity, police said. Officials did not say how long it would take to repair the pipeline. Insurgents frequently target the country's gas and oil infrastructure, which provides much needed revenue for reconstruction efforts in Iraq. In Rome, the newspaper that employs an Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq said Wednesday that it has indications she is alive and that intelligence officials have established indirect contact with the kidnappers. Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for communist daily Il Manifesto, was abducted Friday by a group of gunmen outside Baghdad University. Conflicting claims have appeared on Islamic militant Web sites: One said she had been killed, while another said she would soon be released. Il Manifesto said an unspecified contact person had been able to see Sgrena twice, Monday and Tuesday, and reported that she was well. The paper said the person could be used as a mediator in future communications with Sgrena's kidnappers. The contact is the result of work by Italy's government and intelligence services, the Rome-based paper said. |
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![Mourners ride with the coffin of Abdul Hussein al-Basri, correspondent for the U.S.-funded Al-Hurra television station, and his son, in the southern city of Basra in Iraq Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005, after the two were killed by gunmen in the Maqal area of the city this morning. [AP]](xin_0102020920102382775848.jpg)
![A US soldier runs for cover after insurgents opened fire on their convoy in January 31. The US military announced that one of its soldiers was shot dead north of Baghdad. [AFP/File]](xin_0102020920103472848949.jpg)
