Allawi vows Iraq violence will not stop elections

IRAQI Prime Minister Iyad Allawi yesterday said elections would be held on schedule in January despite a surge in violence and more than a score of hostages under threat of death from insurgents.

“We definitely are going to stick to the timetable of elections in January next year,” Allawi told a news conference after talks in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. More than 20 people were killed in car bomb attacks yesterday while Islamist militants threatened separately to kill 10 people employed by a Turkish-US business and two Americans and one Briton.

Hundreds of people have died in the past two weeks raising doubts that elections could go ahead.

A militant group has also threatened to kill two Americans and a British hostage today while another group threatened to kill 10 workers from a US-Turkish firm unless their demands were met.

An Islamist group has threatened to kill 15 captured Iraqi soldiers if authorities did not release an aide to Shi’ite rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr within 48 hours.

The kidnappers were demanding the release of Sadr aide Hazem al-Araji, a Shi’ite cleric.

However, Iraq ruled out concessions to kidnappers threatening to murder British hostage Kenneth Bigley and two American colleagues within 24 hours.

Mr Allawi said after talks with Tony Blair at 10, Downing Street that his government was “trying our best” to free Mr Bigley.

The country’s foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said giving in to the captors’ demands to free women prisoners in jails in Abu Ghraib and Um Qasr would set “a very bad precedent”.

He said: “Our policy is not to negotiate with the terrorists.

“These people have an agenda trying to undermine this Government, to influence the US elections, even beyond Iraq. They have ideological, very extreme views.”

He confirmed the men, taken three days ago, had been kidnapped by alleged al Qaida supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s organisation, the Tawhid and Jihad Group.

The group said yesterday morning they would give the coalition 48 hours to release the women prisoners or all three hostages would be killed.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi Islamist group said it had beheaded three members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which cooperates with Iraq’s interim, US-backed government.

An internet video tape from the Army of Ansar al-Sunna appeared to show the heads of three young men being severed and placed on their bodies.

The abduction of Westerners has forced many foreign firms to scale back their operations or pull out.

Mr Blair and Mr Allawi said they were working to resolve the latest kidnappings.

“I don’t think there is anything more I can or should say at this stage,” Mr Blair said.