A Catholic archbishop has been kidnapped in Iraq, the Vatican confirmed today.

In a day of violence in which 15 died, 66-year- old Iraq-born Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, the leader of one of two Catholic communities in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, had been abducted in a "terrorist act", according to the Vatican spokesman.

The Holy See "condemns in the firmest manner this terrorist act and demands that Monsignor Casmoussa is rapidly returned safe and well to his ministry", the spokesman said.

Archbishop Casmoussa is leader of Mosul’s 35,000-strong Syrian Catholic community, which is closely linked to Rome. Pope John Paul II, who named Casmoussa archbishop in 1999, late last year condemned attacks on Catholic churches in Mosul.

Eight Iraqi National Guards were shot dead at a checkpoint and seven people were killed in a suicide car bombing at a police station as preparations continued for elections in less than two weeks' time.

The Iraqi soldiers were fired on outside a provincial broadcasting centre in Buhriz, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, near the troubled city of Baquoba.

Four other Iraqi soldiers were injured in the attack. The area is considered an insurgency hotspot as violence continues ahead of the ballot on January 30.

The suicide attack took place in Beiji, about 155 miles north of Baghdad on the main supply route north. Six people were killed but it was unclear if they were police or civilians.

Yesterday 17 people were killed in the Suwaria and Kut area, which US and Iraqi officials have classified as among the areas secure enough for polling. The dead included three Iraqi policemen and three Iraqi National Guard soldiers killed in separate attacks.

As mourners gathered for the policemen's funeral, a suicide bomber killed another seven people, all civilians, and himself.

Two Iraqi government auditors were later shot dead after armed gunmen stopped their car in Suwaira. The town lies along a main road southeast of Baghdad which, until recently, had served as a safer alternative route for Iraqis traveling from Baghdad to southern Iraq.

In a further attack a police captain was killed and another policeman was injured when their car was hit by a roadside bomb in Numaniyah, 85 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The violence came as thousands of American reinforcements were pouring into Iraq’s northern capital, Mosul, for a battle that could decide the fate of the country’s elections.

In the biggest military operation since US troops stormed the rebel city of Fallujah two months ago, paratroopers, infantrymen and armoured units have converged on the city over the past two weeks, increasing the number of Americans on the ground to more than 10,000.

Their objective is not only to wrest back control of the city from insurgents but to create enough stability so that Mosul’s inhabitants can be coaxed into voting.

For the first time thousands of newly trained Iraqi troops have also been drafted in and will provide security at voting stations on polling day.

Several American commanders said that the objective could become the deciding factor in determining whether the polls to elect the country’s first democratic parliament were a success or a failure.

"Based on what I have seen I think we can hold elections — I am optimistic that we can change perceptions and restore security," said Lieutenant Colonel David Miller, an infantry commander who arrived two weeks ago to restore control of Mosul’s ancient city centre. "We are already seeing progress on the ground. The population will go with whoever they think is successful."

American and Iraqi leaders have admitted that free and fair elections will be almost impossible in four of the country’s central provinces, where the Sunni Muslim insurgents have vowed to stop the vote.

While voters are expected to cast their ballots in the Shia Muslim South and the Kurdish North, this ethnically mixed city of two million could go either way. Half the population is Sunni Arab, but there are also large minorities of Kurds, Christians and other ethnic groups who might well vote if free from intimidation.

On patrol with the Americans it is easy to see how divided Mosul is. In Kurdish areas the population waves enthusiastically at a passing patrol. In Arab areas the same Americans are greeted with angry stares and the troops scan rooftops and alleys for the next ambush.

The once passive city, which was a model of postwar co- operation, has in the past two months become one of the bloodiest. On November 8 militants staged a co-ordinated attack, seizing all but three of the city’s 33 police stations. Some 8,000 Iraqi police officers fled, leaving behind weapons and equipment. Last month a young Saudi suicide bomber managed to infiltrate the largest American base here and killed 22 people in a dining hall — the worst single American toll of the insurgency.

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