Thaindian News

Baghdad, June 19 (DPA) Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqiya List won the most seats in this spring’s parliamentary elections, confirmed Saturday that he has received warnings of planned assassination attempts against him and other leaders in his
party.

Allawi said warnings were conveyed to him two months before the March 7 elections by the multinational forces in Iraq, as well as the Iraqi Defence Minister. The plans reportedly called for him to be killed with a bomb placed in his car.

He added that the Iraqi government did not provide him with protection.

Earlier this month, an Iraqiya spokesman said the party received reports about possible assassination attempts targeting leading members of the bloc, including Allawi.

This statement came after two elected members of the Iraqiya List were killed in the city of Mosul in May. In February, before the election, a candidate for Iraqiya was also killed.

Political tension followed the election results. Those showed that Allawi’s secular Sunni Iraqiya List had won 91 seats in the 325-member parliament, beating the rival State of Law coalition of incumbent Premier Nuri al-Maliki by just two seats.

Both Allawi and al-Maliki are competing to head the future government. Allawi insists he has the right to form a new government because his bloc won the most seats.

But al-Maliki argues that he now has the largest bloc in the parliament with 159 deputies, after forming the Shiite-dominated National Alliance with Ammar al-Hakim’s Iraqi National List. That total, however, is still four seats short of a majority.