A U.S. soldier welcomes delegate Mahmood Mohammad Omar (L) for elections in Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq, May 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - An assembly of more than 200 people meeting under U.S. "auspices" elected a mayor and council for Iraq's northern capital Monday, May 5.

Amid strong U.S. military security, some 250 delegates listened to a speech by the top U.S. military official in the region before parting to choose the 24-member council, which will select a mayor from three independent candidates.

As the delegates left to choose their representatives, several of them announced to the media that they were withdrawing from the election in protest at the division of delegates along ethnic lines.

Delegates elected an Arab mayor, a Kurdish deputy mayor and two assistant mayors from the Turkmen and Assyrian Christian communities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

A 24-member city council also included representatives of the Yezidi and Shabak communities, two Kurdish sub-groups, and was "carefully" balanced to represent both the city and the surrounding countryside.

The council comprises seven Arabs from inside the city and six from outside, three Kurds, two Assyrian Christians from inside the city and one from outside, one Turkmen and two retired army officers, one from the Shabak community and one Yezidi.

"I congratulate you on your achievement today," Major General David Petraeus, commanding officer of 101st Airborne Division told delegates after the election.

"You have taken a major step forward for Mosul and Iraq. I want to thank the many citizens who worked with us to organize this meeting," he said.

The new mayor, retired army general Ghanim al-Boso, pledged to work "closely" with the U.S.-led troops occupying the city.

"I promise that I will sincerely work with you and with the coalition for the well-being of Mosul and Iraq," he said.

Basso, whose brother was killed by Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, stood against a retired police general and a doctor, also both Arabs, for the position of mayor.

Each community met privately to elect its own representatives before the main election was held by ballot at the Social Club in Mosul.

The electoral assembly was made up of 73 Arabs from the city, 82 Arabs from outside, 27 Kurds, 18 Assyrian Christians from inside Mosul and nine from outside, 15 Turkmens and 18 retired army and police officers, nine from the Shabak community and nine from the Yezidi.

Guesswork

But U.S. commanders acknowledged that in the absence of any reliable recent census, there had been a certain amount of guesswork involved in estimating the relative strength of the different communities.

"Numbers are arbitrary numbers based on what we think the population is," Petraeus's secretary, Lieutenant Jeanne Hull, told AFP.

The Yezidis are a group of Kurds who have remained faithful to their pre-Islamic religion.

The Shabaks speak a dialect of Kurdish very different from their immediate neighbors, and which is also spoken in east-central Turkey. They have been recorded separately in censuses since the days of the British mandate.

The lection took place under heavy security provided by the U.S. occupation forces.

The council was subject to criticism, including corrupt officials who served under Saddam and new leaders with little or no popular support.