Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s president, an influential Sunni Muslim, threw his support Wednesday behind having the Jan. 30 election on time despite insurgent threats he said have paralyzed voter registration voter registration in some Sunni areas of the country.

Suicide bombers targeted U.S. and Iraqi forces Wednesday on the road to Baghdad airport and near a bridge south of the capital — grim reminders of the perilous security situation.

U.S. troops fought a half-hour gunbattle with insurgents in the northern city of Mosul, and one American was wounded. Clashes also occurred between U.S. troops and insurgents in Samarra, 60 miles north of the capital, wounding three Iraqi soldiers and two civilians, Iraqi officials said.

Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi met Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders in Amman, Jordan, trying to drum up support for the election, which is seen as vital for building a democratic government in Iraq.

Insurgent attacks have raised concern that voting will be impossible in some areas of central and northern Iraq, and leading Sunni clerics have called for a boycott to protest the U.S.-Iraqi offensive on Fallujah and the continued American military presence.

That prompted several key Sunni Arab politicians to call for delaying the balloting by up to six months to buy time to resolve the security crisis.

However, President Ghazi al-Yawer, who wields considerable influence among Sunni tribal figures, told reporters in Baghdad he opposed any delay.

“I personally think that there is a legal and a moral obligation to hold elections on the set date,” he said. “Legally and morally, we have to abide by the date set for the elections in the country’s administrative law” which mandates a ballot by the end of January.