Iraq-Developments 11A

DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ

* Insurgents launched mortars at a military base near Iskandariyah, killing one Marine and wounding five.

* U.S. soldiers stepped up operations ahead of Sunday's elections, moving to forward positions around Baghdad and tightening security at their main bases.

* The al-Qaida affiliate led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted a videotape on the Internet showing the murder of a candidate from the party of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

* Iraqi newspapers published for the first time the names of some 7,000 National Assembly candidates, many of whose identities had previously been kept secret to protect them from assassination.

* Roadside bombs and suicide car bombers killed 6 Iraqis and injured 21 others.

* The scientific head of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, Jafar Dhia Jafar, said his country would have developed atomic weapons in the early 1990s if Saddam Hussein had not invaded Kuwait.

* Britain will send 220 extra troops to Iraq to help compensate for the pullout of 1,400 Dutch troops by March 15, the Ministry of Defense said.

* Insurgents attacked seven polling stations in Kirkuk with mortars and machine guns and opened fire on a police patrol, killing one policeman.

* Armed men blew up a school administration building after first ordering the staff to leave in Samarra. The building was scheduled to be a voting center.

* Militants fired mortar shells at four schools designated as polling stations in the southern province of Basra.

* U.S. and Iraqi troops clashed with insurgents on Haifa street in Baghdad, witnesses reported.

* In Ramadi, an Iraqi national guard soldier was killed when insurgents attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi force guarding a voting center at a school, said police Lt. Safa al-Obeidi.

* A British soldier testified in court that three comrades accused of mistreating civilians had laughed and joked as they forced two Iraqi men to simulate sex acts.

* The interim Iraqi government will deploy an additional 2,500 troops to help guard the weekend elections, bringing the total number of Iraqi and multinational security forces to about 300,000, the Defense Ministry said.

-- AP