Iraq Watch: December 29, 2005

International Team Agrees to Review Vote

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An international group has agreed to review the results of Iraq's highly disputed December 15 parliamentary elections. Sunni and secular Shiite groups have demanded an inquiry into electoral returns in which preliminary results showed the staunchly conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), led by Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leading by a wide margin.

The International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) will conduct a broad overview of the election process and attempt to address the over 1,500 voting complaints registered - of which at least 50 are considered as "serious" by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI).

In ongoing violence Thursday, at least 12 members of a Shiite family were systematically executed south of Baghdad in the ethnically mixed city of Latifiyah. Reports indicate that the family had been warned to move out of the Sunni district of the city, located about 20 miles south of the capital in the infamous 'Triangle of Death'.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the Iraqi Interior Ministry killing at least four Iraqi police and injuring five others. Meanwhile, Lebanese engineer Camile Nassif Tannous has been abducted according to Lebanon's Foreign Ministry. In another hostage crisis, the insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, released a video of five kidnapped Sudanese nationals. The video's accompanying message announced that the groups Sharia council has decided to give Khartoum a 48-hour ultimatum to renounce its ties with the Iraqi government or the five will be executed.

Also Thursday, a U.S. soldier, assigned to Task Force Baghdad, was killed by an IED in eastern Baghdad the U.S. military announced.