Early voters targeted as blasts in Baghdad kill at least 17

Insurgents have repeatedly threatened to use violence to disrupt the elections, which will help determine who will oversee the country as US forces go home.

Two of the blasts hit voters outside polling stations.

Deputy Interior Minister Ayden Khalid Qader said: "Terrorists wanted to hamper the elections, thus they started to blow themselves up in the streets."

He said that because the bombers were not able to reach polling places because of security measures, they were targeting voters on their way to them.

Many of the victims were believed to be security personnel – the main group to cast their ballots during early voting yesterday since they will be working on election day.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were expected to take part in yesterday's early voting, a one-day session designed for those who might not be able to get to the polls on Sunday, when the rest of the country votes.

Early voters also included hospital patients and medical workers.

In the first of the attacks a Katyusha rocket killed seven people in the Hurriya district about 500 yards from a polling station.

The second took place in the Mansour district when a bomber blew

himself up near soldiers lining up to vote at a nearby polling station, killing six people and wounding 18.

In the third blast, another suicide bomber attacked policemen waiting to vote, killing four people and wounding 14 others.

US and Iraqi officials have warned that insurgents could launch attacks in an attempt to disrupt the vote.

Yesterday's bombings were the latest serious violence to affect Iraq, with a string of suicide bombings the previous day leaving 32 people dead.

Those attacks, in the city of Baqouba about 35 miles from Baghdad, were said to be co-ordinated and one of the bombers rode in an ambulance with wounded from one attack before blowing himself up at the hospital.

Sunday's elections are only Iraq's second for a full parliamentary term since the 2003 invasion.

Both US and Iraqi officials have issued repeated warnings about the prospect of insurgents launching attacks to try to disrupt the voting process and strong security arrangements have been put in place to try to reduce the risk.

That will include an airport closure on Sunday, with hundreds of

thousands of police and troops dispersed across the country.

The violence could have an effect on the candidacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who took power in 2006 and was in charge as the country returned to relative stability over the last couple of years.

At a high school in Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood yesterday, police and military officials crowded in to the building to cast their votes, then wiped the purple ink – used to prevent people from voting twice – from their fingers.

Concern over toll of Iraq Birth defects

The high level of birth defects among babies born in Fallujah is

an "appalling legacy" of the war in Iraq, an MP has claimed.

Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson highlighted "distressing" reports claiming the level of heart defects among newborn babies in the city is 13 times higher than in Europe.

She said there were concerns the high rate was due to weapons used by US forces during fighting six years ago.

Troops used white phosphorus shells and there has been speculation that controversial depleted uranium rounds were also fired.

Iraqi-born researcher Malik Hamdan said doctors have seen a "massive, unprecedented number" of heart defects.

Ms Hamdan said the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births – 13 times the rate in Europe.

During questions on future business in the Commons, Ms Swinson asked Commons leader Harriet Harman: "You may have seen distressing reports about the increased rate of birth defects in Fallujah, which are now 13 times higher than what we see in Europe.

"There is a concern that this is as a result of weapons used by the US during the Iraq War.

"Can we have a debate on this issue so we can hear from the Foreign Secretary what representations he is making to his US counterparts about this appalling legacy?"

Ms Harman told her there would be a defence debate next week.