Iraq Watch: December 17, 2005

Security Relaxed as Vote Lockdown Period Ends

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Security measures put in place to protect voters participating in Iraq's parliamentary elections were eased Saturday. Commercial vehicles were once again allowed onto the streets and the nations' borders and airports were opened, with the one exception being the Syrian border crossing.

Meanwhile, election officials continued to manually sort through the ballots of the estimated 11 million Iraqi's who voted in Thursday's landmark elections. Political wrangling also was in full affect Saturday with prominent Iraqi politicians publicly reaching out to other sects and political blocs in an effort to garner partnerships in order to increase their power in Iraq's new parliament. The conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) is anticipated to finish on top once all the ballots are tabulated although they are not expected to gain enough seats to be a dominate majority on the Council of Representatives without making at least some compromises with other blocs.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), was one of the first prominent politicians to extend the olive branch to opposing sects. On Friday al-Dulaimi stated that he would be willing to join forces with secular Shiites and Kurds.

In violence Saturday, Sheik Kerim Al-Asadi, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) - which is part of the aforementioned UIA - was assassinated outside of his eastern Baghdad home. Elsewhere, two Iraqi police were killed in separate incidents in eastern Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Also, Maj. Gen. Mushriq Ibrahim Abdul Hamid, a former officer in the Iraqi air force, was slain near his home in Baghdad's Sadiyah district. Following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, there have been a rash of killings of former members of the Iraqi air force. There have been reports that Iranian intelligence officers have been carrying out the targeted assassinations in reprisal for the Iraqi air force's role in the devastating and bloody Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced that a U.S. Marine, assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group based out of Fallujah, died west of Baghdad yesterday as the result of a non-hostile gunshot wound.