Iraq's main Sunni Muslim political party threatened Thursday to boycott the country's first election if it goes ahead on January 30 as scheduled. 

"We called for elections to be postponed for six months because the security situation is not suitable," said Mohsen Abdul Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

"Otherwise we will reconsider our stand. We may withdraw."

The Iraqi Islamic Party said on Wednesday it wanted a role in the political process provided the election was postponed, as relentless violence in the central Sunni heartland would make it difficult to prepare and campaign, let alone hold a poll.

But Iraq's interim government, and the Shi'ite majority that stands to gain most from the election, are determined it take place on time.

Many Sunni Arabs, who comprise some 20 percent of Iraq's 26 million people yet dominated under fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein, have felt marginalized since last year's US-led invasion.

Some Sunni clerics and political groups have already called on voters to boycott the election in protest over US-led attacks to crush insurgents in Sunni cities such as Fallujah.

More than 2,000 people were killed so far in the flashpoint city of Fallujah, an Iraqi senior security official said yesterday.

Also yesterday, hundreds of British troops raided houses of suspected Saddam loyalists in the latest phase of a US-led operation to crack down on guerrilla strongholds in the lawless territory south of Baghdad.

Around 500 British soldiers searched a stretch of road lined with upscale villas where officials in Saddam's regime kept country retreats outside the capital, according to pool reports. They detained 80 Iraqis and confiscated suspected bomb making equipment. No soldiers were wounded during the raids.

In another development yesterday, police in Basra have arrested six men, including five foreign Arabs, suspected of planning attacks in the southern Iraqi city.

A lieutenant of Iraq's most feared terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was also captured a few days ago in Mosul, the government's national security adviser said yesterday. The alleged lieutenant was identified as Abu Saeed and no further details were given.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2004)