Iraq Watch: December 14, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The nation of Iraq was largely quiet Wednesday as strict security measures went into effect throughout the country in preparation for Thursday's landmark parliamentary elections. Voter turnout is expected to be high with minority Sunnis', who largely boycotted the January balloting, vowing to head to the polls, which are scheduled to open at 7:00 a.m. (11:00 p.m. EST). Numerous Iraqi insurgent groups, including the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), have promised to refrain from attacking polling stations.

Iraq was unusually calm on Wednesday, although two Iraqi police officers from Iraq's Interior Ministry were killed and four injured in a roadside bombing near the northern city of Mosul. The AP described Baghdad's usually bustling city streets as "eerily quiet." Security officers could be seen guarding empty roads and deserted checkpoints.

However, Iraq was not free of controversy on the eve of elections. Thousands of conservative Shiites rallied against the Dubai-based Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera after an Iraqi commentator on the channel criticized Shiite clerics for "conspiring with the Americans against the mostly Sunni insurgents." By late Wednesday thousands of protestors had amassed in cities throughout southern Iraq to denounce the popular Arab television station.

In Nasiriyah, also in Shiite-controlled southern Iraq, demonstrators attacked and burned the offices of former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi along with the offices of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). Allawi heads a secular Shiite political bloc that is running under the banner of the Iraqi National List (INL).