Iraq tightens security for constitutional vote
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq announced a curfew, weapons ban, border closings and other security measures Saturday to clamp down ahead of next weekend’s key constitutional referendum and prevent insurgent attacks. Sunni Arabs geared up their campaign to defeat the measure at the polls.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed in fighting in western Iraq, bringing the number of American casualties to eight in a series of offensives the military has launched to put down militants before the Saturday vote.
In Baghdad, a suicide attacker detonated a car full of explosives at two police vehicles forming a checkpoint, killing at least five policemen and wounding 20 people.
It was the sort of attack Iraqi security forces are hoping to avert with a ban on using vehicles on voting day – a step taken during parliamentary elections in January. Sunni-led insurgents have vowed to wreck the referendum with a wave of attacks.
“We will protect those who say yes and those who say no,” Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said in Baghdad. “We have countermeasures against all terrorist actions, and you will see tens of thousands of Iraqi security forces deployed in Baghdad and the provinces.”
On Thursday – two days ahead of the vote – a nationwide nighttime curfew will begin and nobody will be able to carry weapons in public, even if they are licensed, Jabr said. On Friday evening, police will bar travel between provinces. International borders, airports and ports also will be closed, but Jabr did not say when that step would begin.
He acknowledged problems with security in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, the heartland of the insurgency. In the provincial capital of Ramadi, only 1,000 of the city’s 6,500-member police force were willing to come to work, Jabr said. He said help from powerful local tribes was needed to protect polling stations and the Iraqi military would have to be responsible for security.
The referendum has divided Iraqis, with leaders of the Shiite Muslim majority and Kurds supporting the constitution and Sunni Arabs opposing it, saying it will fragment Iraq. Sunnis can defeat the charter if they garner a two-thirds “no” vote in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces.
A delegation from the Arab League arrived Saturday in Iraq to lay the groundwork for an Iraqi “reconciliation conference” it hopes to hold after the vote. It was the first time the pan-Arab organization has tried to take a direct role in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
“The situation is so tense there is a threat looming in the air about civil war that could erupt at any moment, although some people would say that it is already there,” Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told British Broadcasting Corp. radio Saturday.