Mohammed Ali Majid, 18, attended to the corpse of his brother, Islam. He said Islam had warned of police complicity with insurgents.
"My brother called me last night, he was warning me," Majid said. "He told me the police are cooperating with the terrorists in this area. He only said that, didn't say anything more, and hung up."
Iraqi men gather in a mosque in Balad, north of Baghdad, to mourn those killed when a bomb exploded beside a bus carrying Iraqi National Guardsmen. Eighteen of the dead were attached to a largely homegrown battalion.
(Reuters TV)
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Iraq's majority Shiites are eagerly awaiting the vote as an opportunity to gain power proportionate to their population. Sunni political leaders, however, have called for a boycott, and Sunni insurgents and extremists have threatened to attack polling stations and voters.
In the nearby city of Sharqat on Sunday, insurgents blew up a government building that was intended for use as a polling center. And the Reuters news agency reported that all 12 members of the election committee in the northern city of Baiji had resigned after receiving death threats.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Iraqi Defense Ministry sounded a defiant note.
"No one can affect us," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "Neither this car bomb nor any other car bomb will be an obstacle in our way.
"We are an army, and we are moving in the way of freedom."
Elsewhere in Iraq, according to the Associated Press, insurgents killed at least seven officials and police officers. The toll included four police officers on patrol outside Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad; the deputy governor of Diyala province, northeast of the capital; a Baghdad police officer; and the police chief in Jebala, 40 miles south of the capital.
Also Sunday, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division and additional Iraqi security forces arrived in Mosul, a northern city of 1.8 million that has been a battleground since November. The arrivals could double the force of 8,000 already in the city, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Staff writer Jackie Spinner and special correspondent Bassam Sebti contributed to this report.
