Rebels targetted in Iraqi poll countdown
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US and Iraqi forces have pressed on with aggressive raids against Sunni Muslim insurgents in towns southwest of Baghdad, racing against time to quell rebellion in time for an election in January.
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The final vote tally from Iraq's Jan.  30 elections will be announced at 4 p.m. (8 a.m. EST) on  Sunday, the Election Commission said.
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U.S. offensives in rebel-held Iraqi  cities in recent weeks are part of a major push to wrest them  from insurgents before the end of December to allow local  security forces to oversee elections, U.S. commanders said.
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A brazen attack in the heart of Baghdad with rebels executing election workers in cold blood was a chilling reminder of the deteriorating security situation in the capital ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.
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Iraq said Tuesday it would shut its  land borders and bar traffic from getting close to voting  centers over the Jan. 30 polls to try to thwart attacks, as  insurgents targeted a Shi'ite party with a suicide bomb.
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Iraqi authorities set Jan. 30 as the date for the nation's first election since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and pledged that voting would take place throughout the country despite rising violence and calls by Sunni clerics for a boycott.
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The final vote tally from Iraq's  election was due to be announced on Sunday, two weeks after the  historic polls that are expected to confirm Shi'ite political  dominance but marginalize the restive Sunni Arab minority.
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With a US-led offensive on Falluja apparently imminent, rebels hit back with attacks in Samarra, Baghdad and Ramadi, another rebel-held city.
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US forces and Iraqi units last night were preparing to storm rebel strongholds in the northern city of Mosul as fighting wound down in Fallujah.
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Insurgents launched attacks in the Sunni heartland cities of Samarra and Ramadi on Wednesday, while Iraqi officials mulled a suggestion to extend national voting for two or more weeks beyond the established date of Jan. 30.
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Election centers have been bombed,  candidates and electoral officials threatened and even killed.  With only a week to go, intimidation is turning Iraq's landmark  polls into a new kind of secret ballot.
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Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq called for rebels to resist US forces during the assault of Fallujah, posted a five-minute message on a Muslim website Friday.
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BAGHDAD  - Three Iraqi organizers of next month&#39;s landmark elections were gunned down in a Baghdad rebel stronghold as insurgents made good their threat to sabotage the preparations with deadly violence.
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Friday&#39;s battle for the Iraqi city of Samarra is the opening salvo in what will be a campaign over the next several months to &quot;take back&quot; more than a dozen Iraq cities where insurgents hold sway, in time for country&#39;s January elections
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Insurgents attack US troops, polling stations and Iraqi forces as security increases ahead of Sunday's election.
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Iraq had a rare moment out of the world spotlight in the past week, eclipsed by the tsunami devastation in Southeast Asia. But the country saw a host of critically important political developments and deadly attacks that could cripple elections set for Jan. 30, and that suggest the insurgents are refining their strategy to wreck the vote.
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BAGHDAD : More than 3,000 US and Iraqi forces launched an offensive on another rebel enclave in Iraq as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi pledged new plans to crush insurgents before promised January elections.