Vote recount delays results of Iraq elections

FINAL results from landmark Iraqi elections will be delayed because votes from about 300 ballot boxes must be recounted.

Final results from the January 30 election were to be announced today.

But an election commission spokesman said the deadline would not be met.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist working for a US-funded television station and his son as they left their home yesterday in the southern city of Basra, an official said.

Abdul Hussein al-Basri an Al-Hurra TV station correspondent, and his son were both killed n the city's Maqal area, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

No new partial results have been released since Monday for the voting for the 275-member National Assembly, 18 provincial councils and a regional parliament for the Kurdish region in the north.

Partial results showed a coalition of Kurdish parties in second place raising the possibility that Shi'ites and Kurds might share power and even open the way for a Kurdish president.

A Shi'ite-dominated ticket endorsed by Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with about half the votes, followed by the coalition of Kurdish parties.

The ticket of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, is in third place.

If that reflects the final line-up it appears unlikely Mr Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who favours strong ties to the US, could emerge as a compromise choice for prime minister when the new assembly convenes by early March.

Meanwhile, the US military yesterday announced the deaths of two more American soldiers.

It said one soldier died of a gunshot wound in Balad, north of Baghdad.

The second soldier was shot and killed on Sunday in Mosul.