Iraqis brave bullets for ballot

Iraqis cast ballots on Sunday in the nation's first free election in half-a-century despite sporadic violence that killed over two dozen people.

Millions of Iraqis cast ballots Sunday in the nation's first free election in half a century -- a vote hailed by officials as a success despite sporadic violence that killed more than two dozen people.

An Iraqi election official claimed on Sunday that 72 per cent of eligible Iraqi voters who had registered had cast ballots nationwide as the voting ended. But the official later backtracked and offered conflicting, lower numbers for the turnout.

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The official, Adel al-Lami of the Independent Electoral Commission, offered no overall figures of the actual number of Iraqis who had voted till Sunday afternoon to back up the initial claim.

After being questioned in depth by reporters, he offered lower and conflicting numbers of the percentage of eligible and registered voters who had cast ballots.

Earlier, the top US adviser to commission, Carlos Valenzuela, offered a much more cautious assessment, saying turnout appeared to be high in many areas, but that it was too early to know for sure.

There has been little sign of voters in some heavily Sunni areas, such as the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, according to witnesses. But Valenzuela said earlier that some voters had shown up in the two cities.

Earlier, Iraqis turned out to vote on Sunday in their country's first free election in a half-century, defying insurgents who launched deadly suicide bombings and mortar strikes at polling stations. By midday, at least 36 people were dead but the violence had slowed and voting picked up.

Casting his vote, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny." The head of the main Shiite cleric-endorsed ticket, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, said: "God willing, the elections will be good ... Today's voting is very important."

Despite the heavy attacks that began two hours after polls opened, turnout was brisk in many Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighbourhoods, both in Baghdad and in southern cities like Basra.

Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad - a mixed Sunni-Shiite area - 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centers. More walked toward the polls.

"This is democracy," said an elderly woman in a black abaya, Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.

In one sign of potential trouble, polls at first were deserted in mostly Sunni Muslim cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra around Baghdad, and in the restive, heavily Sunni northern city of Mosul.

By midday, however, hundreds of people were voting in Samarra and several hundred people were voting on Mosul's eastern side, which includes both Kurdish and Arab neighbourhoods, witnesses said.

There were still big pockets with little turnout, though, and clashes had erupted beween insurgents and Iraqi soldiers in western Mosul.

In Baghdad's mainly Sunni area of Azamiyah, the neighbourhood's four polling centers did not open on Sunday, residents said. In Beiji, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in northern Iraq, polling centers were all but deserted.

The chief UN adviser to the Iraqi election commission, Carlos Valenzuela, said turnout seemed to be good in most places, although he cautioned it was too early to know for sure.

He said there were some voters in Fallujah and Ramadi. "There have been a number of attacks of course, as expected," Valenzuela said. But, he said: "These attacks have not stopped the operations."

Asked if reports of better-than-expected turnout in areas where Sunni and Shiite Muslims live together indicated that a Sunni cleric boycott effort had failed, one of the main groups pushing the boycott seemed subdued.

"The association's call for a boycott of the election was not a fatwa (religious edict), but only a statement," said Association of Muslim Scholars spokesman Omar Ragheb. "It was never a question of something religiously prohibited or permitted. We never sought to force anyone to boycott."

Across Iraq, joy broke out in places as the day went on. At one polling place in Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers and voters joined hands in a dance.

Another polling site in Baghdad ran out of ballots and was trying to get more, US officials said.

At another in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his AK-47 assualt rifle under one arm and held the hand of an elderly blind woman to guide her to the polls. A driving ban seemed to discourage car bombs. But the insurgents improvised: Several used belts of explosives rather than cars rigged with bombs to launch their suicide missions.

The Al-Qaeda affiliate led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for at least four attacks on polling centers across Iraq. The claim, posted on a website, could not be verified.

In the most deadly attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a polling station in western Baghdad, killing himself, three policemen and a civilian, officials said. Witness Faleh Hussein said the bomber approached a line of voters and detonated an explosives belt.

In a second suicide attack at a polling station, a bomber blew up himself, one policeman and two Iraqi soldiers. In a third suicide attack at a school in western Baghdad, three people and the bomber died, police said.

And in a fourth, at another school in eastern Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed himself and at least three others. Another five people died in other suicide attacks.

Also, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the home of Iraq's justice minister in western Baghdad in an apparent assassination attempt. The minister was not home but the attack killed one person, an Interior Ministry official said.

The rest were killed in shootings and explosions in several communities north of Baghdad.

Overall, eight of the 36 people killed were suicide bombers. In addition, three people were killed when mortars landed near a polling station in Sadr City, the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community. Two others died when a mortar round hit a home in Amel, and a policeman died in a mortar attack on a polling station in Khan al-Mahawil, south of Baghdad.

In Mosul, the province's deputy escaped an assassination attempt, but his bodyguard was killed.

The heavy attacks started about 8:30 a.m., less than two hours after voting began, in Baghdad and cities including Baquoba, Basra, Mosul and Samarra. They eased around noon.

Even as the attacks raged nearby, voters turned out in large numbers in the poor Shiite community of Jisr Diyala in eastern Baghdad, with the number of voters increasing as the morning wore on.

"I don't have a job. I hope the new government will give me a job," said one voter, Rashi Ayash, 50, a former lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi force. "I voted for the rule of law," he Ayash said after casting his vote.