At least 37 people were killed and dozens wounded Sunday as suicide bombers and insurgents hit voting centres on Iraq's first free election in half-a-century.
Insurgents bent on disrupting the elections sent out bombers to wreak mayhem at polling centres around Baghdad but despite the intimidation factor, people still came out to vote, particularly in Shiite areas.
The group of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for suicide attacks against polling stations, according to an Internet statement.
The interior ministry said 30 civilians and six police died in attacks during Iraq's election and 96 people - 83 civilians and 13 police - had been injured.
A US soldier was also killed in action Sunday. The toll did not include suicide bombers who died carrying out attacks.
In the deadliest strike of the day, a suicide bomber struck outside a polling centre in eastern Baghdad, killing seven civilians and two policemen, an interior ministry source said, the second such attack in the capital on election day.
"The toll is nine killed, including seven civilians and two policemen, along with 12 wounded, seven of whom were civilians and five policemen," the source said, not counting the bomber who also died in the attack.
A policeman was killed and four others wounded when a bomber blew himself up near a polling station in Baghdad's upmarket Mansur district in the western part of the capital, the interior ministry said.
Police and soldiers had stopped the bomber as he tried to enter the sealed-off cordon around the polling station when the attacker detonated his explosives belt, a US military officer said. Two of the wounded were policemen and the others civilians.
An insurgent suicide attack against the residence of Justice Minister Malek Douhan al-Hassan killed a guard and injured four people, the interior ministry said.
In the most brazen attack, a suicide bomber was able to breach tough security to get into a Baghdad polling station for an attack that killed two people, police said.
A bomb also tore apart a bus ferrying Iraqi Sunni Muslim voters to a polling station, killing five people and wounding 14, police and hospital sources said.
The bomb planted inside the bus blew up at 4 pm (1300 GMT) as the Sunni Arab voters drove from their village of Abu Alwan to the larger town of Mahawil, said Police Captaim Ahmed al-Sumawi.
Rebels also fired mortars and rockets on polling stations. Four people were killed and seven others wounded when a mortar hit a voting centre in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City in the latest attack against the community expected to emerge as the resounding victors of the poll.
North of Baghdad, a female voter and a child was killed and 15 others wounded in a mortar attack on a polling station in the northern Iraqi town of Balad, police said.
South of the capital, a civilian was killed and three policemen wounded in Mahawil in the Shiite-dominated province of Babil, the Polish military said.
A US soldier died early Sunday in an attack in the restive province of Al-Anbar, but no details were given on his death.
US commanders have warned of suicide attacks, car bombs and mortar and rocket fire on Iraq's first election since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein almost two years ago as insurgents try to wreck the milestone event.
The unrest, which had already been predicted by world and Iraqi leaders, came despite a range of stringent security measures that included a ban on driving during polling day and the closure of Iraq's borders.
Mortars landed in some areas of the city but there were no casualties.
Iraqi soldiers surrounded polling stations, and it was difficult for people to move around.
West of Mosul, in the city of Tall Afar, at least eight people were wounded in fighting, medical sources said.
In the southern city of Basra, mortars landed near two polling stations but there were no reports of casualties.
Police arrested one of the attackers who fled to a Sunni Muslim mosque and surrounded the mosque, named al-Hamza, Police chief Ali Hamadi said.
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