Iraq announces polls day security plan

The Iraqi government will declare a three-day holiday for the January 30 elections and ban cars around the polling stations and impose restrictions on vehicle movement around cities, State Minister Wael Abdul Latif told reporters.

Latif admitted elections would be limited in four provinces in central Iraq where the insurgency threat is at its greatest.

US and Iraqi officials fear the vote turnout could be low with the general population frightened about attacks by insurgents. The elections will choose a 275-member national parliament, as well as provincial councils.

So far, no voter registration has taken place in the western Al-Anbar province and Iraq's third largest city Mosul, said Abdul Hussein Henda-wi, the head of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission.

"Anbar -- Ramadi (the capital of the province) -- will have secure centres, that's all I can say," Hendawi said.

Voting registration in Anbar province and Mosul will occur on election day, Hendawi said.

Security plans have been put in place district by district in Baghdad, as well province by province, Latif said.

He hinted the general population could very well be barred from traveling outside their city or even neighborhood on election day.

The top Iraqi general for Kirkuk, Anwar Amin, told AFP last week that there would not be travel allowed between towns and cities inside Kirkuk's northern province of Tamim.

In late December, Adel Lami, a ranking officer on Iraq's Indep-endent Electoral Commi-ssion, told AFP about 100,000 police and army would be mobilised on election day.

Meanwhile, senior US officials and commanders in Baghdad are bracing for violence on election day, anticipating car bombs, gunfire, mortars and rocket attacks.

"There are places here that are ugly. There are other places looking pretty dog-gone good," Brigadier General Jeffrey Hammond, a deputy commander of US troops in the capital, told reporters Friday.

"Intimidation factor is probably more prevalent in some places than other."