Date of Iraq's first post-Saddam vote set for January 30

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's first post-Saddam elections will be held on January 30, the body in charge of organising the landmark vote announced, as world powers prepared for a conference on the country's future against a backdrop of continued violence.
US and Iraqi troops were still hunting down insurgents in the capital and other parts of the country following a massive operation on the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah where 1,450 suspects have been rounded up.
Several areas of Iraq had become no-go zones in recent months and cast doubt on the feasibility of elections in January, but Iraq's electoral commission spokesman Farid Ayar said the vote would go ahead as planned.
"The general elections will take place on January 30, 2005," Ayar told AFP in Beirut.
Despite growing scepticism that the elections could be held on time and boycott calls from radical Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had always remained adamant there would be no delay.
With the US military more stretched than ever by its nationwide push to reclaim rebel hotspots, top US brass hinted tours of duty could be extended and reinforcements sent to Iraq for the elections.
Ayar's announcement will be a boost ahead of a conference opening in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday which will bring regional and international powerbrokers to the same table for the first time since the June transfer of power.
Iraq will be represented by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who said he would seek to muster broader foreign involvement in rebuilding and securing Iraq, and send a message to Iraqis that the interim government was in favour of free elections.
Representatives of G8 countries, the United Nations, European Union, Arab League, Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Iraq's neighbours are expected to pledge support to UN resolution 1546 on the political process.
Iran nevertheless warned that the first day of the conference, during which Iraq's neighbours will discuss regional issues, could be the most contentious.
"We will take part in the Sharm el-Sheikh conference with force," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
He said Iran will "protest against the methods of the United States, insist on the necessity of withdrawing American troops from Iraq and the organisation of elections on schedule."
Financial issues were also expected to be discussed during the two-day gathering, amid differences over how to handle Iraq's massive debt burden.
A source on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting of finance chiefs in Berlin said Russia was blocking a Paris Club agreement to wipe out 80 percent of Iraqi debt.
Germany on Saturday unveiled a breakthrough international plan to wipe out tens of billions of dollars of debt so that the war-torn country can begin rebuilding in earnest.
A US-Iraqi military push against insurgent bastions across Iraq has left several major cities in tatters. Swift and extensive reconstruction is seen as crucial to win over Iraqi opinion and avoid providing a fertile breeding ground for further rebellion.
Humanitarian convoys have not yet been able to enter the battered city of Fallujah and are assisting the vast majority of Fallujah's civilian population which had fled the fighting after the launch of the biggest military operation in Iraq since the US-led war in March 2003.
Meanwhile, the northern city of Mosul looked set to be spared a military onslaught on the same scale, as US and Iraqi troops nevertheless continued to hunt down insurgents who set police stations across the city ablaze two weeks ago.
US army commander Colonel Robert Brown said operations in Mosul would differ greatly from the ferocious attacks that leveled large swathes of the Sunni Muslim strongholds of Fallujah and Samarra.
"You are using intelligence to go precisely where the enemy is, you go and find them where they are and allow them no safe harbour," said Brown.
Nine men found murdered Saturday in central Mosul were also confirmed to be Iraqi regular army soldiers while another two bodies of men believed to be soldiers were found in a street on Sunday.
The US military announced Sunday that some 1,450 people had been rounded up during the assault on Fallujah, a city of 300,000 west of Baghdad which had become the rebel capital of Iraq and was seen as one of the main obstacles to the January vote.
The Fallujah campaign dealt a serious blow to the insurgency, but calls by Iraq's most wanted man -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- to take the fight to other targets in Iraq and attack pipelines fueled fears that the problem had moved rather than disappeared.
Overnight, saboteurs set an oil well on fire west of the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, bringing to six the number of blazing wells in the area, a security source said.
The government squad in charge of protecting the crucial northern oil infrastructure said it thwarted another attack, killing one would-be saboteur and wounding another.
Meanwhile, US and Iraqi troops were also hunting down suspected Fallujah insurgents who escaped the city before the assault and might be regrouping in Baghdad.
Government forces stormed a key Sunni mosque in the capital on Friday, arresting more than 30 men. The next day, rebels staged a bold raid against a nearby police station, sparking intense clashes with US troops.

11/21/2004 - 11:33 GMT - AFP