BAGHDAD, Jan 6 (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi extended Thursday an emergency law aimed at thwarting violence ahead of January 30 elections, while the bodies of 18 Iraqis lured to their deaths by promises of work at a US base were uncovered.
Meanwhile, Iraq's neighbours meeting in Jordan pledged not to interfere in elections and urged all Iraqis to head to the polls and decide their future.
"The elections represent the only opportunity in sight along the path of democracy and freedom," said a statement at the end of a four-hour meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and a senior Iranian official.
In another sign of Iraq's determination to go ahead with elections despite the violence and calls for boycott and delay by many Sunni Muslim groups, Allawi extended emergency measures throughout the country except for the northern Kurdish regions.
"Because of the zealous determination by a clutch of terrorists to prevent Iraqis from peacefully participating in the political process we have decided th extend the state of emergency," Allawi said in a statement.
The emergency law was introduced for 60 days on November 7, the eve of the US assault on the former rebel-stronghold of Fallujah.
It gives the prime minister the authority to impose curfews, restrict movement between cities and set up around-the-clock courts where the government can go to obtain arrest warrants.
Curfews are already in place in Baghdad, Mosul, Baquba and other cities.
In the latest gruesome twist from insurgents, 18 Shiite Muslim workers were found dead in the predominantly Sunni region of Mosul after they were tempted to the northern city by promises of well-paid work at US bases.
The victims, aged between 16 and 42, were driven by poverty in their village of Bayda in the relatively peaceful southern province of Zi Qar to seek work in Baghdad from where a mysterious contractor lured them north.
"The contractor did not accompany the workers but gave them an address in northern Iraq and told them to go there," said Naim Hussein Farhan Khafaji, who lost a brother in the massacre.
Distraught relatives of the men, who were almost all related, were gathering at a Baghdad hospital on Thursday to collect the bodies, which had all been found with a bullet to the head.
A leader of the Iraqi communist party, Hadi Saleh, was found strangled to death in Baghdad, his eyes blindfolded and hands tied with metal twine.
A US soldier was killed during an operation in restive Al-Anbar province, while the head of police in the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City, Abdel Karim, was gunned down in a morning ambush.
Four Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were also killed in separate attacks in the north of the country.
A day earlier, three suicide bombings killed 20 people, most policemen, taking to over 50 the number of people killed in attacks in the space of just two days.
But a chorus of influential voices, including Allawi and US President George W. Bush, have again rejected growing calls to delay elections because of surging violence and a boycott by Sunni parties.
And the deputy US ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, said insurgents in Iraq are "thugs" who will not be allowed to stop the elections.
"A delay in elections is a wrong thing to do, from a military point of view. It gives thugs and terrorists more time for intimidation," he warned adding that 14 out of 18 Iraqi provinces were safe enough to hold elections in them.
At the Taji base, north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army unveiled its new mechanised brigade albeit with refurbished vehicles from the old army under the gaze of Allawi and other ministers.
"Building an army is a long and difficult mission," said Allawi, speaking as Iraq marked national army day. "Iraq has been liberated of Saddam, who turned the army into a tool of repression."
He said insurgents are targeting Iraqi security forces because they fear an organised and better equipped army.
Thursday also saw the disappearance of the Iraqi national guard, a collection of 49 regional paramilitary battalions around the country, which is being incorporated into the New Iraqi Army and structured as nine divisions.
French newspaper Liberation, meanwhile, said one if its correspondents was missing in Iraq.
"We have had no news from Florence Aubenas in over 24 hours," nor of her assistant, Hussein Hanoun Al-Saadi, the Paris-based paper said.
Aubenas, 43, and Saadi left their Baghdad hotel early Wednesday but did not return and have not been seen since, it added.
Two French reporters, Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale, were released by insurgents in Iraq on December 12 after being held hostage for four months.

01/06/2005 18:29 GMT - AFP