35 arrested in Babel on charges of killing candidate

BABEL / IraqiNews.com: Personnel from the Scorpion Force on Sunday arrested in the area of Jebla, northeast of Hilla city, 35 people suspected of involvement in murdering Haytham al-Husseini, a candidate of the Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) list for the coming local elections, police said. “The force conducted a search raid in Jebla, (35 km) northeast of Hilla, on the background of murdering Husseini, who is running for the Babel provincial council elections, at the hands of unidentified gunmen two days ago,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The force arrested 35 suspects and seized an amount of weapons, including medium BKC rifles,” the source said. Earlier, a security source told IraqiNews.com news agency that Husseini was assassinated and four of his bodyguards wounded in an armed attack northeast of Hilla on Friday. Husseini’s Dawlat al-Qanoon list is composed of Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party, the Dawa Party – Iraq Organization, the Islamic Solidarity List, Feyli Kurds, the Islamic Union for Iraqi Turkmen and the Mustaqiloon (Independents) bloc. The provincial council elections are scheduled to be held on January 31 in Iraq’s 18 provinces save Kirkuk and the three autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Duhuk. According to the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) office in Babel, 387 out of the total number of candidates of 1,452 are women. The candidates are vying over 30 seats in the local council. Hilla, the capital city of Babel province, lies 100 km south of Baghdad. Babel received security responsibilities from the U.S. forces on October 23, 2008. AmR (S) 2