Representative of Iraq's dominant Iran-linked Shiite party tops election list

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A cleric with links to Iran leads the candidate list of a powerful coalition of Iraq's mainstream Shiite Muslim groups for next month's election, an aide said Friday. The list also includes former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi and some followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim — the head of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution — would stand to take a central position in the assembly that will create Iraq's next government and constitution, if the coalition takes most of the parliament seats in the Jan. 30 vote.

In a troubling sign, masked gunmen riding in a black BMW killed three members of Iraq's Hezbollah Shiite movement, one of the 23 groups in the coalition, said Essa Sayid Jaafer, director of the group's political office. Jaafer said one of the three victims, Sattar Jabar, was on the candidate list and had been warned he would be killed unless he bowed out.

"Sattar Jabar received a threatening letter two days before the assassination," Jaafer said. "The letter mentioned that if you are nominated, you will be killed, but he did not give the threat any attention."

Backed by Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the coalition — called the United Iraqi Alliance — hopes to draw the bulk of the vote from Iraq's Shiite majority. U.S.-backed interim Prime Minster Ayad Allawi, also a Shiite, has not joined the group and is drawing up his own candidate list.

The coalition's platform, which has not been finished, will include a call for working toward the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops in Iraq, members said.

"There must be a timetable for this," said Hussein al-Mousawi, an official of the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella group that has some parties represented in the alliance.

For now, troops are arriving in greater numbers, part of a U.S. plan to bolster security ahead of elections. In the southern city of Basra, Iraqi security officials reported that American soldiers ordered to Iraq had crossed the border with Kuwait on Friday.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad declined to comment on the reported troop movement, citing security concerns. There are about 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Washington announced the 12,000-troop increase last week, which will bring the U.S. military force to the highest level of the war, including the initial invasion in March 2003.