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...insurgents the coming days to make those places safe enough for voting. The four provinces are all in the country's Sunni Triangle, which forms the core of the resistance against the US-backed project: Al Anbar, which includes Falluja and Ramadi; Nineveh, including the restive city of Mosul; Salahuddin, which includes Tikrit (near the home village of Saddam), and parts of Baghdad. Metz said the other 14 provinces were ready to hold the elections, and he expressed confidence that the Iraqi security forces, which have often performed miserably against the guerrillas, would be largely responsible for security at 9,000 polling places around the country. The US military will stay away from the polling places, lest they antagonise Iraqi voters, and will engage in military operations only if they are called in by the Iraqi forces.
Metz's statement came after several major offensives against insurgent strongholds in Falluja, Samarra' and areas south of Baghdad. Metz said: "Today would not be in much shape to hold elections in those provinces three weeks from today. Those are the four areas that we see enough attacks that we are going to continue to focus our energies". As part of that plan, US forces last week stepped up...
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The Palestinian Election., January 10, 2005
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