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17 Iraqi Workers Killed by Rebels in Attack on Bus
...Citing the deepening violence, more political leaders added their voices to a growing movement to delay the national and provincial elections now scheduled for Jan. 30. Leaders of Iraq's majority Shiite community have responded to earlier calls by insisting that the elections go forward as planned, and President Bush said Thursday that they must not be postponed.

But the political leaders who gathered in Baghdad on Sunday, mostly Sunni Arabs representing about 40 political parties and individuals, said that the insurgents' campaign of violence and intimidation made credible elections impossible for the moment, and that holding them in January would achieve an illegitimate result that could provoke further civil conflict....

...Shiite leaders in southern Iraq have deeply resented the killings of Shiite security officers and religious pilgrims in the Sunni-dominated area around Latifiya, and last month they began organizing hundreds of young men into so-called Anger Brigades. The stated goal of the brigades has been to kill extremist Sunni Arabs in the area around Latifiya in northern Babil province, known as the Triangle of Death.

The specter of civil conflict also looms over the January elections. Some Sunni political figures at the conference in Baghdad on Sunday, held at the Babylon Hotel, warned that a January election could result in a dramatically unbalanced result along sectarian lines, with many Sunni Arabs either boycotting the election or too frightened to go to the polls. Turnout is expected to be high, meanwhile, among Iraq's majority Shiites, and among the Kurds, who dominate in the north.

"A partial election will put the country into chaos," said Tariq al-Hashmi, the secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The party, one of the better-known Sunni groups, is considering boycotting the elections, Mr. Hashmi said.

At the conference, about 40 officials signed a petition calling for a postponement, and vowed to press their case with the United Nations, the Arab League, the State Department of the United States and other world bodies....