Ba'athists banned from Iraq election campaigning

Iraqi National Movement (INM) spokesman Haydar al-Mulla said that the alliance would suspend its campaign for three days while it attempted to negotiate the return of dozens of its candidates.

The justice and accountability committee, which imposed the ban on over 450 candidates for alleged ties to the former ruling Ba'ath Party, is the latest incarnation of the US occupation's "debaathification committee."

Critics argue that its effort to exclude Arab nationalists from office in the new Iraq is serving to heighten sectarian tensions in the run-up to the country's March 7 parliamentary vote.

Mr Mulla said it was unclear how many of the INM candidates had been banned from running, but he said election officials initially put the number at 72.

The biggest blow to the group was the loss of one of its leaders MP Saleh al-Mutlaq.

Mr aMutlaq - a prominent critic of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's heavily Shia-biased administration - acknowledges that he was a Ba'athist until the late 1970s, when he quit the party.

A panel confirmed the ban on him earlier this week.

The INM has called for a review of the banning process and an emergency session of parliament.

The coalition said in a statement: "This situation raises serious questions about the usefulness of the coming elections, whose results some in the political arena wish to predetermine through intimidation, blackmail, creation of crises and the sowing of chaos."

Several small bombs exploded on Saturday night outside the offices of five mostly Sunni political parties, including Mr Mutlaq's Iraqi Front for National Dialogue.

The attacks were mounted a day after the leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq group threatened to prevent the elections from going ahead "primarily by military means."

On a militant website Abu Omar al Baghdadi warned Sunni citizens against participating in the elections, which he said would only cement the position of Sunnis as a minority in Iraq, leaving "the agents of Iran more powerful and influential."