BAGHDAD, Jan 1: Militants vowed to target Iraq's elections, just weeks away, as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi declared that Iraq's future lay with democracy.

In the dawn of 2005, the opposing visions of Iraq offered by Allawi, a vocal advocate of next month's polls, and militants revealed the high stakes in the war-torn country.

Allawi delivered his thoughts on state-owned Al-Iraqiya television.

"The new year will be decisive in the history of our nation and its future," he said.

"I wish my good nation a happy New Year and I hope it brings to Iraqis and the whole world happiness, prosperity and stability God willing," he said.

His speech was laced with images of Baghdad and ordinary people strolling in busy markets to mellow music.

"There will be no true economic growth if we do not rid ourselves of the old ways," said Allawi. "Economic and political progress require a democratic environment."

The three-minute message seemed like it was taped in Allawi's office in the fortified Green Zone, home to the interim government and the US embassy.

The mayhem of post-Saddam Iraq intruded almost immediately after the broadcast, when a string of explosions rattled central Baghdad.

With an eye to the January 30 polls, radical groups in Iraq, including Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sunna, warned in an statement they considered democracy "un-Islamic" and threatened any voter.

"Those who participate in this dirty farce will not be sheltered from the blows of the mujahideen," said a statement posted on Thursday on an Islamist website, signed also by the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of the Mujahideen.

US and Iraqi forces braced for violence. Adel Lami, of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, said about 100,000 police and national guard will be mobilized.

Iraqi voters are to choose a transitional 275-seat National Assembly, a parliament for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and 18 provincial councils.

However, the elections are unfolding against a backdrop of ethnic and religious tension and the militancy responsible for assassinations and bombings.

The polls have become a test in the US "war on terror." US President George W. Bush has vowed Iraq's election must go forward, while his nemesis, Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, reportedly told Iraqis this week to boycott the polls.

In a crackdown on militants, US troops and Iraqi security forces arrested 49 suspects in the insurgent hotbed of Duluiya north of Baghdad, swooping on the town before dawn and searching 13 homes, the US military said.-AFP