BAQUBA, Oct 30: A bomb hidden in a truck packed with dates killed at least 25 in a Shia village market north of Baghdad on Saturday, in what appeared to be the latest bid by Sunni extremists to spark a sectarian war in the run-up to the December general elections.

Hospital officials said some 45 people were also wounded in the attack on the village of Huwaider, near Baquba, 60km from the capital.

This was the latest in a string of apparent sectarian attacks by extremists against the country’s Shia majority whose representatives came to power in January’s elections after years of Sunni rule under deposed leader Saddam Hussein.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent group controlled by Sunni extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has killed hundreds of Shiites, mostly in car bomb attacks, since declaring open war on the community in September.

The group aims to deepen the rift between Shias and Sunnis in a bid to further destabilize the war-torn country, according to observers here.

In Baghdad, several large political coalitions established mostly on sectarian or ethnic lines Friday put forward their candidates for the December 15 general elections, the final phase in the country’s year-long transition to democracy.

Five large coalitions, along an undetermined number of small parties, and independent candidates had until Friday to register election candidates.

The electoral commission on Sunday said 228 lists had been registered, including 21 coalitions, but it did not immediately specify the number of candidates.

The new 275-member parliament will take over from the transitional parliament elected in January and is to serve for four years, its first full term since Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled in April 2003.

Former Iraqi prime minister and Washington favourite Iyad Allawi, who head the largely secular Iraqi National List, on Saturday warned that “growing ethnic polarisation risks causing endless conflict in Iraq which could also split along sectarian lines”.—AFP