Bombers kill 36as Iraqis holdcrucial election

Many Iraqis hope the election will put them on a path toward national reconciliation as the US prepares to withdraw combat forces by late summer and all troops by the end of next year.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political future with challenges from a coalition of mainly Shiite religious groups on one side and a secular alliance combining Shiites and Sunnis on the other.

Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad. Mortars also fell in the Green Zone, the heavily protected diplomatic enclave from which Iraq is governed.

Polls closed at 5pm as scheduled and election officials said it could be days before preliminary results are released.

With the fractured nature of Iraqi politics it could take months of negotiations after the results are released before a government is formed.

Many view the election as a crossroads, where Iraq will decide whether to move away from ethnic and sectarian feuding, in a country whose borders enclose several rival religions, races and cultures.

Exiting the polls, Iraqis waved purple-inked fingers – the now-iconic image of voting in this oil-rich country of roughly 28 million people.

Extraordinary security measures did not foil Sunni insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections – which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the US occupation.

They launched a spate of mortar, grenade and bomb attacks throughout the morning that also targeted Mosul, Fallujah and other small towns.

US and Iraqi officials described the violence as the work of insurgents trying to undermine voting.

In a posting early yesterday on an Islamic website, the al-Qaida front group Islamic State in Iraq warned that anyone taking part in the voting would risk “God’s wrath and to the mujahideen’s weapons,” saying the process bolsters Iraq’s Shiite majority.

An Interior Ministry official said 35 people had died in Baghdad alone but did not have a breakdown of where the deaths occurred. One other death was reported in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

In Baghdad’s northeast Hurriyah neighbourhood three people were killed when someone threw a grenade at a crowd.

At least 19 people died in north-eastern Baghdad after explosions destroyed two buildings about a mile apart, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighbourhoods.

In Mosul, police said unidentified gunmen threw a grenade on a polling centre, wounding six voters, while in Fallujah six mortar rounds were fired around the city but caused no casualties.

An explosion in the mixed neighbourhood of Kirayaat in northern Baghdad killed one person, police and hospital officials said. There were a number of other explosions elsewhere in the country, but no other reports of fatalities.

About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament. To try to secure the elections, Iraq sealed its borders, closed the airport and deployed thousands of military and police in the streets.

Extra checkpoints were set up and some voters reported strict searches in which they could not bring even pens or cigarettes through the checkpoints ringing the voting centres.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned terror attacks, but said they were an indication of the “significant democratic progress” made in Iraq since the 2003 war.

It was too early to say whether the elections were free and fair, but initial reports were “encouraging”, said the Foreign Secretary.

US President Barack Obama also praised Iraqis who turned out to vote yesterday.

“I have great respect for the millions of Iraqis who refused to be deterred by acts of violence, and who exercised their right to vote,” Mr Obama said in a statement.

“Their participation demonstrates that the Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process. ”

Defence Secretary Robert Gates said security improvements had forced linked militants to change tactics.