Delay in Iraqi elections ‘would lead to a bloodbath’

ANY delay in Iraq’s January 30 elections would lead to civil war and a “bloodbath” in the country, the interim government’s national security advisor warned yesterday.

Muwafaq al-Rubaie was speaking after the assassination yesterday morning of the governor of Baghdad province Ali al-Haidari, the most senior member of the Iraqi authorities to be killed by insurgents since May.

His murder, along with six bodyguards in a Baghdad suburb, was swiftly followed by a suicide tanker truck bomb at an Interior Ministry commando headquarters in the Iraqi capital, which killed 10 people and injured 60. Responsibility for both atrocities was claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Iraq’s most wanted terrorist, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.