Militants Kidnap 3 Senior Iraqi Officials

[cal04]

Militants abducted three senior Iraqi officials, beheaded a man who worked for the U.S. military and killed at least four others, officials said Saturday, a day after a U.S. general warned that insurgents may be planning "horrific" attacks ahead of Jan. 30 elections.

Meanwhile, Shiite and Sunni religious leaders voiced sharply divergent views on whether the vote should be held at all.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, a senior deputy for Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said American leaders expected a rise in attacks before the election, but they had no intelligence indicating specific plots.

Sheik Mahmoud Al-Somaidie of the Sunnis' Association of Muslim Scholars favored postponing the vote. "We all want elections, but we are seeking fair and free elections," he said in Baghdad. "Those of us who are calling for postponement are seeking that for the benefit of the country. Elections have to be an Iraqi demand, not the demand of the foreign countries."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050108/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[Coventina]

1. Sounds like those "dead-enders" are doing pretty well

or is this more signs of progress?

:shrug:

[bemildred]

2. Why not just have a story every day,

like the ones about "big explosion in western area of Baghdad", that
says "Insurgents continue to run amok in Iraq, occupation impotent
to do anything about it"?