Iraq election day attack kill's 24

Iraq election day attack kill's 24
Explosions killed 24 people as Iraqis voted on Sunday in an election that Sunni Islamist militants have vowed to disrupt, in one of many challenges to efforts to stabilize Iraq before U.S. troops leave.

Scores of mortar rounds, rockets and roadside bombs exploded near polling stations in Baghdad, and some elsewhere, in a coordinated campaign to wreck the voting for Iraq's second full-term parliament since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Iraq's political course will be decisive for President Barack Obama's plans to halve U.S. troop levels over the next five months and withdraw entirely by end-2011. It will also be watched by oil companies planning to invest billions in Iraq.

In the deadliest attacks, 12 people died when a bomb blew up a Baghdad apartment block and four were killed in a similar explosion at another residential building. A Katyusha rocket killed four people elsewhere in the capital of seven million.

At least 65 people were wounded around the country.

The Baghdad security spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, said most of the rockets and mortar bombs had been fired from mainly Sunni districts in and around the city.

"We are in a state of combat. We are operating in a battlefield and our warriors are expecting the worst," he said.

Despite the hail of attacks, Moussawi said a car ban aimed at foiling vehicle bombs had been lifted after less than four hours of voting. Curbs on buses and trucks stayed in force.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate, had warned Iraqis not to vote and vowed to attack those who defy them.

The 96,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq stayed in the background, underscoring the waning American role in Iraq.