Kurds pull ahead of Allawi

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A Kurdish ticket pulled into second place ahead of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s candidates in Iraq’s national election after votes were released Monday from the Kurdish self-governing area of the north. Insurgents struck Iraq’s security forces with suicide bombs and mortar fire, killing more than 30 people.

First election returns from the Sunni heartland confirmed on Monday that many Sunnis stayed away from the ballot box, leaving the field to Shiite and Kurdish candidates. A Shiite-dominated ticket backed by the Shiite clergy leads among the 111 candidate lists, with a final tally of last week’s election for a 275-member National Assembly expected by week’s end.

Allawi, who favors strong ties with the United States, had hoped to emerge as a compromise choice for prime minister, but the Shiite cleric-backed ticket say they want one of their own for the top job.

Kurds, estimated at 15-20 percent of the population, gave most of their votes to a joint ticket made up of the two major Kurdish parties, which was in second with about 24 percent of the votes reported as of Monday. One of the Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani, has announced his candidacy for the presidency.

Allawi’s ticket trailed with about 13 percent of the vote, with the Shiite ticket leading with about half the votes. Shiites comprise about 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people.

Monday’s attacks were the latest sign that insurgents are stepping up attacks against Iraq’s security forces, which the United States hopes can assume a greater role once a newly elected government takes office. The bombings and kidnappings have shattered a brief downturn in violence after the Jan. 30 elections, the first nationwide balloting since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

U.S. troops manning a checkpoint discovered four Egyptian technicians who had been kidnapped the day before in Baghdad, an Egyptian diplomat said. The four were freed and some arrests were made, he added.

Monday’s deadliest attack occurred in Baqouba, where a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle outside the gates of a provincial police headquarters, killing 15 people and wounding 17, police Col. Mudhahar al-Jubouri said. Many victims were looking for jobs as policemen, al-Jubouri said.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a suicide bomber wandered into a crowd of security personnel at a hospital and blew himself up, killing 12 people and wounding seven, U.S. officials said.