And in a sign of continuing tensions among Iraqi factions, the spokesman for the Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said his organization may reconsider its participation in a national reconciliation process because of continued killings of Sunnis by Shiite extremists.
"What is happening today means crushing and killing this initiative," Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi said.
Aides to the top cleric of Iraq's Shiite majority said Saturday that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is signaling to his followers that they should vote for the Shiite alliance in the upcoming election.
Al-Sistani stopped receiving Shiite politicians and candidates weeks ago in a sign of displeasure over the Shiite-led government's performance. However, aides said the cleric is now telling people to vote for the Shiite alliance to "preserve Iraq's unity" and "protect Iraqis."
Also Saturday, a leading member of the British anti-war movement, Anas Altikriti, arrived in Iraq to try to win the release of the four Christian peace activists taken hostages last week.
Altikriti told the British Broadcasting Corp., that he would meet with various Iraqi organizations in hopes one of them might have contacts with the kidnappers.
The co-workers of the activists _ two Canadians, an American and a Briton _ appealed to militants Saturday to release them.
"They are really working for peace and justice. They are helping you and other Iraqi people," Peggy Gish of the Chicago-based organization Christian Peacemaker Teams told The Associated Press in Amman, Jordan.
The kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostages if Iraqi prisoners are not released from American and Iraqi jails by Dec. 8, the Arabic satellite Al-Jazeera television reported.
The German government said it was working to secure the release of an aid worker and her driver kidnapped in Iraq on Nov. 25. In a video made public on Tuesday, kidnappers threatened to kill Susanne Osthoff, 43, unless Germany stops dealing with the Iraqi government.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin that the government had been unable to establish contact with the kidnappers.
Germany opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and did not send troops but has been training Iraqi soldiers and police outside this country.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany will not be "blackmailed" in the case.
