BAGHDAD -- A day after an Iraqi court ordered a partial recount of ballots cast in last month's national elections, the man whose political alliance won the most votes called Tuesday for a broader recount of ballots -- a move that could deepen the country's instability before the planned U.S. military withdrawal.
The alliance's leader, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said his group had submitted evidence to the court detailing instances of fraud that occurred in the days after the March 7 parliamentary elections in several provinces in southern Iraq, a region where Mr. Allawi fared poorly. The court has not issued a decision on the claims, he said.
On Monday, the Iraqi court ordered votes in Baghdad province, the country's most populous, to be counted again after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed the results in the capital, saying there had been widespread ballot manipulation.
Mr. Maliki's State of Law political coalition narrowly defeated Nr, Allawi's Iraqiya alliance in Baghdad, winning 26 seats to Mr. Allawi's 24 seats. Maliki advisers have said they had expected a far more comfortable victory there.
Overall, Mr. Allawi's political alliance won 91 seats, compared with Mr. Maliki's 89 seats, but neither side has enough seats to form a government on its own.
A new count of ballots limited to the capital could erase Mr. Allawi's slim advantage. It could also push other parties unhappy about the election's outcome to press strongly for an even broader recount. For example, the Kurdish alliance has asked the court to review votes in two divided northern provinces, Nineveh and Kirkuk.
"If we have a recount only in Baghdad, they will find new reasons to keep us out of the government," Mr. Allawi said.
Violence against Iraqis continued during the postelection uncertainty. On Tuesday, armed men stormed a house in a town north of Baghdad, killing the wife and four children of an Awakening Council member, authorities said. The throats of three children were slit. The Awakening Council member was on duty at the time of the killings, guarding a checkpoint not far from his house in Tarmiya, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.
It was the latest attack on a member of an Awakening Council, a group of Sunni men once allied with insurgent groups like al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, but who switched sides and are now aligned with U.S. forces and the Iraqi government. Members of the councils are regarded as traitors by al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown extremist group believed to be led by foreigners.
An al-Qaida leader, Ahmed al-Obeidi, also known as Abu Suhaeb, was killed Tuesday by a joint Iraqi and U.S. military unit during a raid in the northern city of Mosul, security officials said. Mr. Obeidi's death followed a raid by security forces Sunday that killed two leaders of the Sunni insurgent group, including Abu Hamza al-Muhair, its military commander.
Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for Baghdad Operations Command, said Mr. Obeidi was the leader of the organization in Kirkuk, Nineveh and another northern province, Salahuddin.
First Published: April 21, 2010, 4:00 a.m.
