An Iraqi group said it had executed 15 kidnapped Iraqi National Guardsmen for cooperating with the American occupation, while the Iraqi government on Saturday insisted its security steps would be sufficient to protect Jan. 30 elections.
According to The AP, the interior minister announced new security measures, saying Baghdad's international airport would be closed Jan. 29 and 30, and that many parts of the country would be under a nighttime curfew for three days around the time of the balloting.
"There are dangers and there are threats to throw the elections process into chaos, but we hope that our security plan will be up to the standards. We don't rule out an escalation from the terrorist forces," the minister, Falah al-Naqib, told reporters.
The Iraqi group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, meanwhile, announced in a Web statement that it had killed 15 Iraqi National Guard members seized about a week ago off a bus northwest of Baghdad.
"After the investigation, they confessed to the crimes they have committed with the crusader forces," the group said in the statement. "God's verdict has been carried out against them by shooting them....They should be a lesson to others."
The Iraqi guardsmen were pulled from a bus Friday near their base in the town of Hit, 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.
