At least 21 people, including 17 Iraqis working for the US military, were killed as a senior UN official warned that crucial elections could not be held in the current climate of violence.
With more than 90 people killed in the last three days in a spike of unrest despite the end of US-led assaults on rebel cities south and west of Baghdad, Sunni Muslim Iraqis also stepped up calls to delay January's landmark polls.
Lakhdar Brahimi, a special advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and until recently UN envoy in Iraq, said the January 30 vote could only take place "if first and foremost security improves".
By early January, the United States is to increase the number of troops to about 150,000 from 138,000, the highest number since it declared an end to major combat in Iraq. The aim is to ensure the election process runs smoothly.
Early Sunday, 17 Iraqis working for the US military in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit were killed when men in two pick-ups raked their minibuses with a hail of bullets.
As weekend violence claimed the lives of four US soldiers, three Iraqi national guardsmen, including a regional commander, were killed in a car bombing near the oil refinery town of Baiji, just north of Tikrit.
One day earlier, 17 Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen were killed in the main northern city of Mosul when their convoy was rammed by a suicide bomber in a car close to the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.
Despite stressing his comments were meant in a personal capacity, Brahimi's remarks on the difficulty of holding polls have highlighted further concerns over whether the Iraqi elections can go ahead as planned.
The highly-respected Brahimi told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that if the elections were to take place in Iraq's secure areas it would exclude the Sunni minority living in more tense regions.
"The situation does not work. We have to find something which does. If we let the situation get even worse, it will just become more dangerous."
Iraqi parties campaigning for a delay also warned that the results could be contested if the elections go ahead unless the violence eases.
"Flawed Elections: Disputed Results" was the slogan at a Baghdad gathering of about 200 mainly Sunni politicians and party officials amid the sharp upsurge in violence following a period of relative calm.
"How do you guarantee that electors can go to vote without risking their lives," demanded Mishan al-Juburi of the Sunni Freedom and Reconciliation bloc.
"The deterioration in security conditions in numerous provinces means we should postpone them," said Tareq al-Hashemi, secretary general of the moderate Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party.
Political parties, including that of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, had already called for a six month delay to the elections, but the government and the United States has insisted they will go ahead as planned.
In Washington, interim Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawar insisted the vote could be held on time if the international community provides sufficient support.
"We are asking the United Nations, the whole international community, to help us," Yawar told NBC television.
In Iraq, the man in charge of drawing up an electoral list backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, has been arrested by the US military, an aide said Sunday.
"If he is not released, there will be serious consequences," said a Sistani representative. The US military was unable to confirm the arrest.
In Germany, three Iraqis believed to be members of the Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam and arrested on suspicion of plotting an attack against Allawi during his visit to the country last week were all remanded in custody.
The founder of the group, Mullah Krekar, was also questioned in Oslo by German police ahead of the arrests, Norwegian media reported.
Back on the ground, Tokyo's defence chief Yoshinori Ono visited Japanese troops deployed in southern Iraq, becoming the first high-ranking Japanese official to visit the soldiers deployed in Samawa.
"The point of this visit is to reassure myself that Japanese forces at Samawa are well and that the situation is stable," he said.
Japan's deployment is set to end on December 14 but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is widely expected to defy domestic opposition by extending what is Tokyo's first military deployment to a combat zone since World War II.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Red Crescent said that it had pulled out of Fallujah on US military orders after being told that the former rebel stronghold was unsafe.
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