Iraq Clamps Down as Referendum Nears

Iraq announced a curfew, weapons ban, border closings and other security measures Saturday to prevent insurgent attacks ahead of next weekend’s key constitutional referendum.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in fighting in western Iraq, bringing to eight the number of American casualties in a series of offensives the military has launched to weaken militants before the Oct. 15 vote.

In Baghdad, a suicide attacker detonated a car full of explosives near two police vehicles forming a checkpoint, killing at least five policemen and wounding 20 people, including six civilians.

It was the sort of attack Iraqi security forces hope to avert with a ban on using vehicles on voting day -- a step taken during parliamentary elections in January. Sunni-led insurgents have vowed to wreck the referendum with a wave of attacks.

“We will protect those who say yes and those who say no,” Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said in Baghdad.

“We have countermeasures against all terrorist actions, and you will see tens of thousands of Iraqi security forces deployed in Baghdad and the provinces.”

On Thursday -- two days before the vote -- a nationwide nighttime curfew will begin and no one will be permitted to carry weapons, even if they are licensed, in public, Jabr said.

On Friday evening, police will bar travel between provinces. International borders, airports and ports also will be closed, but Jabr did not say when that step would begin.

He acknowledged problems with security in the western province of Al Anbar, the heartland of the insurgency.

In Ramadi, the provincial capital, only 1,000 members of the city’s 6,500-strong police force were willing to come to work, Jabr said. He said help from powerful local tribes was needed to protect polling stations.

The referendum has divided Iraqis, with leaders of the Shiite Muslim majority and Kurds supporting the draft constitution and Sunni Arabs opposing it, saying it will fragment the country. Sunnis can defeat the charter if they garner a two-thirds “no” vote in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

A delegation from the Arab League arrived Saturday in Iraq to lay the groundwork for an Iraqi “reconciliation conference” it hopes to hold after the vote.

“The situation is so tense there is a threat looming in the air about civil war that could erupt at any moment, although some people would say that it is already there,” Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warned in an interview with BBC radio Saturday.

Meanwhile, factions for and against the constitution stepped up their campaigns to get out the vote.