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Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed
grenades at voters Sunday, killing 31 people in attacks aimed at
intimidating those taking part in an election that will determine
whether the country can overcome the sectarian divisions that have
plagued it since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

      Many Iraqis hope the election will put them on a path toward
national reconciliation as the U.S. 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.


      Despite mortars raining down nearby, voters in the capital still
came to the polls. In the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of
Azamiyah in northern Baghdad, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of
two, was speaking as mortars boomed several hundreds yards (meters)
away. Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the
neighborhood shortly after daybreak. Mortars also fell in the Green
Zone - home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office.


      "I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home," said
Abid, who owns a cafe. "Until when? We need to change things. If I
stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse."


      Voting closed at 5 p.m. as scheduled but officials said those
who arrived at polling centers before that time would be allowed to
cast their votes.


      Many view the election as a crossroads where Iraq will decide
whether to adhere to politics along the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish
lines or move away from the ethnic and sectarian tensions that have
emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted,
Sunni-minority rule.


      Al-Maliki, who has built his reputation as the man who restored
order to the country, is facing a tough battle from his former
Shiite allies, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and a party headed
by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.


      "Al-Maliki gave us security despite all the terror. What more
can he do?" said Mariam Omran, a 55-year-old bespectacled mother
of four clad in a black chador. "All I want is peace for my
country," she said after voting in the Shiite neighborhood of
Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad.


      Al-Maliki faces a challenge from a secular alliance led by Ayad
Allawi, a former prime minister and secular Shiite, who has teamed
up with a number of Sunnis in a bid to claim the government.


      "These acts will not undermine the will of the Iraqi people,"
al-Maliki said Sunday morning, speaking to reporters after casting
his ballot.


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


      But observers have warned that the election is only a first step
in the political process. With the fractured nature of Iraqi
politics, it could take months of negotiations after results are
released in the coming days for a government to be formed.


      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 U.S. occupation. They launched a
spate of mortar, grenade and bomb attacks throughout the morning
that, beside Baghdad, targeted the northern city of Mosul,
Fallujah, a former bastion of the insurgency west of Baghdad, and
small towns just to the south of the capital.


      In a posting early Sunday on an Islamic Web site, 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.


      In Baghdad's northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque
loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as "arrows to the enemies'
chest," three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade
at a crowd heading to the polls, according to police and hospital
officials.


      In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south
of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said
Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein.


      At least 19 people died in northeastern Baghdad after explosions
leveled two buildings about a mile apart, and mortar attacks in
western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods,
police and hospital officials said. In Mosul, police said
unidentified gunmen threw a grenade on a polling center, wounding
six voters. In Fallujah, six mortar rounds were fired around the
city but caused no casualties, police said.


      At the scene of one of the Baghdad blasts, near the Sadr City
slum, rescue workers said they could hear women and children caught
alive under the debris screaming for help. The blast left a mound
of rubble, scattered with blankets, pillows and torn bits of
clothing. Rescue workers used cranes and tractors to lift debris.
Bodies were being recovered several hours after the explosion.


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


      U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Stephen Lanza said Sunday's
attacks sought to intimidate voters.


      "But what we've seen is that this psychological effect was not
achieved," he said.


      About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new
parliament, Iraq's second, full-term legislature since the 2003
U.S.-led invasion seven years ago this month.


      To try to secure the elections, Iraq sealed its borders, closed
the airport and deployed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi military
and police in the streets. Extra checkpoints were set up, and in
some parts of central Baghdad, people could not go 50 yards
(meters) without being stopped for search.


      In keeping with the U.S. military's assertion that Iraqis are
running the elections, the only visible American military presence
was in the air or escorting election observers to the polls; four
U.S. helicopter gunships could be seen at one point this afternoon
in the sky over northern Baghdad.

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Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed
grenades at voters Sunday, killing 31 people in attacks aimed at
intimidating those taking part in an election that will determine
whether the country can overcome the sectarian divisions that have
plagued it since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.


Iraqis defy intimidation to vote, attacks kill 36

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