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Iraq

Post-election attacks continue; 17 killed in bombing

By wire services
Published February 13, 2005

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed at least 17 Iraqis at the entrance of a hospital south of Baghdad, and a judge who had investigated crimes in Saddam Hussein's government was gunned down outside his home in Basra by masked men riding a motorcycle, as Iraq's insurgency continued to intensify since elections two weeks ago.

From Monday to Saturday, suicide bombers and gunmen have killed at least 104 people. The attacks have been at or near a Shiite mosque, a hospital, police facilities, a bakery in a Shiite neighborhood and in front of houses.

Many security concerns are now focused on the approaching Shiite holy day of Ashura, Feb. 19. One American government analysis noted that last year more than 180 people were killed during the Ashura celebrations in a series of attacks, and warned that this year, insurgents would try to meld in with the pilgrims, dressing in traditional black robes to conceal weaponry.

The bombing at the hospital, Mussayib General, about 35 miles south of Baghdad, took place during the morning rush hour, about 9 a.m., at the entrance gates where outpatients were lined up and waiting to enter, said an Interior Ministry official. At least 16 people were injured in addition to those who were killed.

In Basra, the judge, Taha Hussain al-Amir, was killed outside his home in the Breiha neighborhood as he was leaving for work at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, said Lt. Col. Kareem al-Zaidi, a spokesman for the Iraqi police.

Amir's driver was also hurt and was taken to a hospital, Zaidi said. Amir worked in the courts of Basra and another southern city, Nasiriya. He was an investigating magistrate in Hussein's security service in Basra.

There was also violence in the north, in Mosul, where the bodies of eight bound and blindfolded Iraqis were discovered Saturday, Agence France-Presse reported. Notes attached to the bodies said that the men had participated in the American-led assault on Fallujah in November to root out insurgents in control of the city.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials will announce the final results of the Jan. 30 national elections today, a spokesman for the election commission said.

Farid Ayar said on Al-Arabiya television Saturday that the commission would meet this morning to finalize some unspecified issues and then announce the final figures in the afternoon. The results will be considered official after three days.

"We will give three days to verify the results, hear any disputes, and then they will be officially declared final," Ayar said Saturday. "All the numbers will be announced tomorrow."

Voters last month chose a 275-member National Assembly and ruling councils in the country's 18 provinces. Iraqis living in Kurdish-ruled areas of northern Iraq also elected a new regional parliament.

Partial returns released early this week showed a Shiite Muslim-dominated ticket endorsed by the Shiite clergy running first among the 111 candidate lists. A Kurdish coalition was running second.

The ticket headed by pro-U.S. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi was running a distant third.

The new assembly will elect a president and two vice presidents, who then will choose a prime minister, who will form a government subject to the legislature's approval.

NEW YORK - The U.N. oil-for-food program chief under scrutiny for alleged corruption and mismanagement blocked a proposed audit of his office around the same time he's accused of soliciting lucrative oil deals from Iraq, according to investigators.

A U.N. auditing team, which was severely understaffed, said running the $64-billion oil-for-food program was "a high-risk activity" and a priority for review. But Benon Sevan denied the internal auditors' request to hire a consultant to examine his office in May 2001 - an act top investigators of the program are now calling into question.

"I think the auditors thought they were steered away from some areas," Paul Volcker, who's leading the independent probe, told the Associated Press. "Our judgment is that the main office should have been audited. And that leaves the inference that perhaps the auditors were not encouraged to do the work. I think we draw the inference that it was at least suspicious."

Two months after Sevan refused the auditors' request, a Panamanian company, African Middle East Petroleum, purchased 1-million barrels of oil, which Iraq had allocated to Sevan - one of nine allocations made between 1998 and 2002 involving Sevan and believed to have netted the company $1.5-million, said an interim report Volcker's committee released this month.

The head of AMEP, Fakhry Abdelnour, a friend of Sevan's, told investigators he paid $160,000 as a kickback to an Iraqi-controlled account in Jordan in October 2001 under one of the oil-for-food schemes under examination.

Volcker did not say that Sevan received kickbacks but expressed concern at $160,000 in cash that Sevan said he received from an aunt in his native Cyprus between 1999 and 2003. The investigative report questioned this "unexplained wealth," noting that the aunt, who recently died, was a retired government photographer living on a modest pension.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week suspended Sevan after Volcker accused him of a "grave conflict of interest," saying his conduct in soliciting oil deals for AMEP was "ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations."

[Last modified February 13, 2005, 01:09:06]