BAGHDAD (AFP) - Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declared a state of emergency in Iraq to combat spiralling violence as 21 police officers were shot dead execution-style in a dawn ambush on their stations.
Allawi said the move, which will grant his government sweeping powers to impose order, was intended to ensure that upcoming elections in January would be held in a secure environment.
He said the measures were a message to insurgents of his determination to root them out as he warned rebels in Fallujah once more to give up amid intense preparations for an expected assault on the city west of Baghdad.
The state of emergency, scheduled to last for 60 days, applied for the whole country except for the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan, his spokesman Thaer Naqib said.
Under a state of emergency, Iraqi authorities have powers allowing them to impose curfews, ban meetings and bug communications, in moves which echo the authoritarian rule of toppled president Saddam Hussein`s regime.
"We are going to implement it (emergency) whenever and wherever is necessary. This will send a very powerful message that we are serious," said Allawi. "We want elections to take place."
A curfew has already been imposed on the restive city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, after a string of car bombs and clashes against police stations and local government targets Saturday left 36 people dead and scores injured.
Adding to the slaying of symbols of the US-backed government, 21 policemen were killed in a dawn ambush on two police stations in the restive province of Al-Anbar, which is also home to Fallujah.
"The attackers disarmed the police, gathered them together and then shot them dead," said an officer at one of the stations.
The ability of rebel fighters to regroup and lash out with impunity in the face of superior US firepower has raised questions among analysts about the effectiveness of using military might over diplomacy.
Some worried that violence might spin out of control under a state of emergency restricting people`s movements and delaying elections.
But Allawi has vowed to crush the insurgency ahead of elections by force if necessary and has set his sights set on Fallujah which is believed to house followers of Iraq`s most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Some 20,000 US and Iraqi troops have gathered around the Sunni Muslim bastion, waiting for Allawi to give the nod for a full-scale assault.
The prime minister, who returned earlier on Sunday from a brief trip to Europe, has issued an ultimatum to the city to surrender its rebel fighters or face attack, but Fallujah leaders insist that men like Zarqawi do not live there.
"The window is closing absolutely," said Allawi again Sunday.
In an ever-intensifying campaign of bombardment, US artillery batteries pounded suspected rebel positions around a cement factory in the town of Karma southwest of Fallujah after seven air strikes levelled arms caches stored in the rebel enclave over a 24-hour span, the marines said.
Four Iraqi civilians were wounded during the raids, hospital officials said.
As they waited for a possible go ahead for what might be their hardest fight since last year`s invasion, US marine commanders gave morale-boosting talks.
"You will be making history... Forty years from now, 100 years from now, they (people) will be talking about the battle of Fallujah," said Major General Richard Natonski, the top commander for the Marines Corps First Division.
Rebels have transformed Fallujah into their fiefdom since a marine assault on the city in April ended in stalemate and left hundreds dead. Tens of thousands have since fled the 300,000-strong city in fear of greater bloodshed.
US and Iraqi troops have been massing around the city since mid-October, while the US military is doubling its manpower in Fallujah`s sister city of Ramadi to 2,000 amid expectations of a double-pronged assault to regain control.
Analysts, however, doubt the military route is the answer to Iraq`s woes, pointing at the resurgence of violence in Samarra barely one month after it was apparently reclaimed from rebel control in a major US-Iraqi offensive.
Underscoring the determination of the rebels, a suicide car bomb exploded outside the Baghdad house of Iraq`s interim finance minister Adel Abdul Mehdi, killing one of his guards, an aide to the minister said.
In addition, two US soldiers were killed and five were wounded in two separate car bomb attacks on their convoys, the US military said.
Two British soldiers were wounded in attack outside their base south of Baghdad, where they had moved recently to allow US forces to concentrate on Fallujah.
This comes three days after three soldiers from the Black Watch regiment were killed in a suicide attack.
11/07/2004 - 19:05 GMT - AFP