BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A ban on election candidates accused of links with Saddam Hussein’s Baath party threatens to drag Iraq into civil war, a former prime minister and head of a group seen as a strong contender in the polls said Monday.

Iyad Allawi, who leads the Iraqiya list into the March 7 vote, said the ban could trigger a resurgence in sectarian attacks, reversing a fall in violence in the last two years that has allowed U.S. forces to eye a 2011 withdrawal date and Iraq to sign major oil deals.

The ban on some 500 candidates with alleged ties to Saddam’s outlawed Sunni Muslim-led Baath party was imposed last month by a commission led by Shi’ite politicians, causing uproar in country only just emerging from years of sectarian bloodshed in which tens of thousands died.

“This will put Iraq in the box of sectarianism and the route to civil war,” Allawi told Reuters in an interview.

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (Reuters) – A ban on election candidates accused of links with Saddam Hussein’s Baath party threatens to drag Iraq into civil war, a former prime minister and head of a group seen as a strong contender in the polls said on Monday. Iyad Allawi, who leads the Iraqiya list into the March 7 vote, said the ban could trigger a resurgence in sectarian attacks, reversing a fall in violence in the last two years that has allowed U.S. forces to eye a 2011 withdrawal date and Iraq to sign major oil deals. The ban on some 500 candidates with alleged ties to Saddam’s outlawed Sunni Muslim-led Baath party was imposed last month by a commission led by Shi’ite politicians, causing uproar in country only just emerging from years of sectarian bloodshed in which tens of thousands died. "This will put Iraq in the box of sectarianism and the route to civil war," Allawi told Reuters in an interview. "If the ban stays as is, haphazardly, with a blanket covering of people … this will lead to severe sectarian tensions," he added, speaking in English. The Baath party brutally oppressed ethnic Kurds and Iraq’s Shi’ites, the majority Muslim sect in Iraq, and the Justice and Accountability Commission replaced the "de-Baathification" committee set up by U.S. administrators to root out Saddam loyalists after his overthrew by U.S. forces in 2003. Allawi, a secular Shi’ite who said he survived an assassination attempt by Baath party agents for his opposition to its rule, said he supported punishment of party members proven to have committed crimes against the Iraqi people. But he said the candidate ban before the election, seen as crucial to solidifying Iraq’s young democracy and settling disputes over territory and vast oil reserves, was indiscriminate and a ploy to eliminate election rivals and detract from the current government’s failures. GROSS FAILURE "Frankly what I see is the gross failure of the government in providing services, in providing security, in reducing unemployment and having a clear cut foreign policy…to cover these failures they are attacking others," Allawi said. The Iraqiya list’s general secretary, Saleh al-Mutlaq, is one of the candidates included in the ban, and Allawi said there were efforts to try and include Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, another senior Iraqiya member, in the list. The men are two of the most prominent Sunni politicians in Iraq, and their exclusion from the polls would fan Sunni complaints of marginalisation by Iraq’s Shi’ite leaders. Sunnis boycotted Iraq’s 2005 national elections, and disenfranchised Sunnis fuelled the bloody insurgency that raged in subsequent years. Their participation in upcoming polls is viewed as crucial if Iraq’s shaky stability is to hold. The candidate ban affects mostly Shi’ites. But it includes a disproportionate number from smaller cross-sectarian alliances, who are seen as doing well in the upcoming polls because many Iraqis say they are tired of years of violence and corruption since sect-based Islamists came to power after Saddam’s fall. The secular Iraqiya list includes Sunnis and Shi’ites. Election lists dominated by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa party and another powerful Shi’ite group the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council are trying to rebrand themselves as nationalists and are toning down religious rhetoric. Allawi said his list was meeting to decide its next move, and called for proof against banned candidates. An appeals panel is going through 177 appeals. But Allawi demanded the banned candidates be allowed to appeal in person, not just through a review of their candidacy papers. (Writing by Mohammed Abbas: Editing by Michael Christie and Angus MacSwan)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq expects that the last of five British hostages captured by militants in Baghdad in 2007 will be handed to British authorities in the coming days, a government spokesman said on Sunday.

Ali al-Dabbagh said he could not confirm whether security guard Alan McMenemy was still alive, two and a half years after his kidnapping at the height of Iraq’s sectarian violence.

British authorities, who believe McMenemy is dead, called for his body to be returned.

Peter Moore, a computer programer whom McMenemy and three other guards were protecting when all five were kidnapped by a Shi’ite militant group, was released alive last week and has returned home after one of the longest hostage crises involving Britons since the 1980s.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – Little has been done to improve Iraq’s impoverished city of Basra, but for one slum dweller, the fact that no more corpses are dumped outside his door means Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gets his vote.

Parliamentary elections are due on March 7, and as the young democracy enacts new laws to settle long-festering disputes over territory and Iraq’s vast oil reserves, competition for a seat at the political table is expected to be fierce.

The mainly Shi’ite Muslim city of Basra is considered one barometer of voter sentiment in Iraq whose population is mostly Shi’ite, and a message of security peppered with nationalist appeals propelled Maliki’s allies to power there in last January’s local polls.

Given that the security situation has remained stable in Basra since then, the same message may work for Maliki again in March, but competitors could steal his thunder by copying elements of his campaign and highlighting the lack of progress in any fields but law and order.

BAGHDAD/LONDON (Reuters) – British computer programer Peter Moore was released on Wednesday, two and a half years after being taken hostage by militants in Baghdad, officials said.

“He is alive and in good health,” Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. Moore was handed to Iraqi authorities and then to the British embassy.

Moore, who was working on contract in Baghdad, was captured with four of his bodyguards from Iraq’s Finance Ministry in 2007 at the height of sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The bodies of three of the bodyguards have since been handed to British authorities. The fate of the fourth, Alan McMenemy, is unconfirmed. British officials believe he is dead.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Vital clues are often lost after deadly bombings in Iraq, where scenes of carnage are quickly hosed down and bodies whisked away for burial, but this is changing with a new emphasis on forensic investigation.

Three new main forensics laboratories and two smaller ones have become fully operational this year and the legal system, which has long relied on confessions, sometimes given under duress, is taking steps toward more evidence-based prosecution.

“It is a confession-based system. But if the suspect is confronted with scientific evidence such as fingerprints from a crime scene, it’s better than getting a screamed confession under duress,” said Robert Lamburne, director of forensic services at the British embassy in Baghdad.

Britain, the United States, Australia and other Western countries have been providing training and equipment for Iraqi judges and investigators, who have a heavy workload in a country where bombings and shootings are commonplace.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iran flexed its muscles by occupying an inactive but disputed oil well on its border with Iraq, a sign to Baghdad of what it can do if it is sidelined and to the West of how Tehran might respond to more sanctions.

Eleven Iranian soldiers on Friday raised their country’s flag over the oil well in a border area disputed by Iran and Iraq. They have since withdrawn slightly, giving up control of the well; Iraq has demanded a full withdrawal.

The move came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki prepared to visit Egypt, which has frosty ties with Iran, and as Iraq signed deals with Western oil majors that could catapult it into first-class oil producer status.

Although the seizure was largely symbolic, what many Iraqis saw as a weak response from Maliki could spell trouble for the prime minister in a parliamentary election scheduled for March 7. A Shi’ite Muslim, he has historic ties to Shi’ite majority Iran.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Critics said the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq said was driven by oil, but United States oil majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.

Iraqi officials said this proved their independence from U.S. influence and that their two bidding rounds this year for deals to tap Iraq’s vast oil reserves, the world’s third largest, were free of foreign political interference.

The Oil Ministry on Saturday ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development, adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day.

“For us in Iraq, it shows the government is fully free from outside influence. Neither Russia nor America could put pressure on anyone in Iraq — it is a pure commercial, transparent competition,” said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Critics said the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq said was driven by oil, but United States oil majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.

Iraqi officials said this proved their independence from U.S. influence and that their two bidding rounds this year for deals to tap Iraq’s vast oil reserves, the world’s third largest, were free of foreign political interference.

The Oil Ministry on Saturday ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development, adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day.

“For us in Iraq, it shows the government is fully free from outside influence. Neither Russia nor America could put pressure on anyone in Iraq — it is a pure commercial, transparent competition,” said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

BAGHDAD, Dec 12 (Reuters) – The United States spent blood and treasure on an Iraq invasion critics said was for oil, but U.S. majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.

Iraqi officials said this proved their independence from U.S. control, and that their two bidding rounds for deals to tap Iraq’s vast oil reserves — the world’s third largest — were free of foreign political interference.

The Oil Ministry on Saturday ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development – adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day.

“For us in Iraq, it shows the government is fully free from outside influence. Neither Russia nor America could put pressure on anyone in Iraq — it is a pure commercial, transparent competition,” said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.