Alligator Online

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen killed eight Iraqi National Guardsmen Monday at a checkpoint northeast of Baghdad, and eight people died in a suicide car bombing at a police station outside the capital as insurgents struck ahead of national elections.

Also Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. There were no reports of casualties, apart from the driver.

Although Ramadi has long been a flashpoint for the insurgency, some of the latest violence has occurred in provinces that U.S. and Iraqi authorities have deemed safe enough to hold the Jan. 30 elections.

Some of the attacks appear aimed at scaring the country’s Shiites away from the polls.

In a statement Monday, the top U.S. general in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, predicted violence on election day but said U.S. and Iraqi authorities would do “everything in our power” to ensure that Iraqis can vote in safety.

Shiite politician Salama Khafaji, who survived an ambush Sunday in central Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms, said she canceled campaigns in the south after staff discovered terrorist checkpoints on major routes.

“What we fear now most is terrorists wearing police uniforms,” Khafaji told The Associated Press Monday. “The uniforms and body armor used by the police are available on the market for anyone to buy.”

She said the security situation was so bad she had shelved plans to tour mainly Shiite cities in Iraq starting Monday.

“We sent people out today to check roads in the area, but they have reported back that terrorists have set up some road checkpoints,” she said.

“Generally, I cannot go out and meet people or knock on doors to get out the vote like they do in the West.”