Iraqi vote threatened by ongoing violence

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Some areas of Iraq probably will be too unsafe to take part in the Jan. 30 elections, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Tuesday in his first acknowledgment of limited voting, and he promised to increase the size of the army in the face of a bloody insurgency, whose latest victims included 13 Iraqis killed by two bombings.\nAllawi also spoke by telephone Tuesday with President Bush for about 10 minutes to reaffirm the importance of holding the elections as scheduled, the White House said.\nIn a news conference, Allawi said the government had allocated $2.2 billion to expand the army from 100,000 to 150,000 troops and provide it with new weaponry. Iraq's armed forces are poorly trained and often underequipped, making them an easy target for insurgents who want to scuttle the elections.\nHe acknowledged that some areas of Iraq likely would be too unsafe to participate in the landmark balloting for a constitutional assembly. The country's volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad and areas in the north around Mosul have seen little preparation for the vote.\n"Hostile forces are trying to hamper this event and to inflict damage and harm on the march and the guarantee for the participation of all in the elections," Allawi said. "Certainly, there will be some pockets that will not be able to participate in the elections for these reasons, but we think that it will not be widespread."\nAllawi is a candidate in the election and has been increasingly visible in recent days. The news conference was his second in as many days, and he stood before several Iraqi flags and signs that read "Security and Safety First."\nA roadside bomb hit a minibus full of Iraqis in Yussifiyah, 10 miles south of Baghdad, said the director of the town's hospital, Dawoud al-Taie.\nAl-Taie said the bomb exploded several minutes after a U.S. convoy passed, but there was no indication the convoy was the intended target.\nA suicide car bomber who targeted a police headquarters in Tikrit killed six people, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said, and police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said 12 were wounded.\nTwo militant groups claimed responsibility for the Tikrit attack. In statements posted on a Web site, the Ansar al-Sunna Army group said it parked a car filled with explosives near the station and then blew it up, while al-Qaida in Iraq, speaking of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said one of its members carried out the "martyrdom attack."\nBoth statements could not be independently verified, but such contradictory statements are not rare. The Web sites where the statements appeared frequently air such claims of responsibility.\nThe last two days have seen a new rise in insurgent attacks during the weeks before the balloting, with four roadside bombings and suicide strikes on Iraqi and American forces Monday.\nWhile Shiites are expected to vote in large numbers, Sunni Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people, say it is far too dangerous to hold the election this month, and many are refusing to participate. Failure by the Sunni Arabs to participate would undermine the election's credibility.