Insurgents fail to stop Iraqi poll
Source: Agencies |
March 8, 2010, Monday
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INSURGENTS bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters yesterday, killing 26 people in attacks aimed at intimidating Iraqis participating in an election that will determine whether the country can overcome jagged sectarian divisions that have plagued it since the 2003 US-led invasion.
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 American troops by the end of next year. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces 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, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of two, was speaking as mortars landed several hundreds meters away. Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood shortly after daybreak.
"I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home," Abid said. "Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse."
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 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Colonel Abdul Hussein.
At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after explosions leveled two buildings about 1.5 kilometers apart, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police said.
Observers have warned that it could take months of negotiations after results are released in the coming days for a government to be formed.
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 American troops by the end of next year. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces 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, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of two, was speaking as mortars landed several hundreds meters away. Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood shortly after daybreak.
"I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home," Abid said. "Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse."
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 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Colonel Abdul Hussein.
At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after explosions leveled two buildings about 1.5 kilometers apart, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police said.
Observers have warned that it could take months of negotiations after results are released in the coming days for a government to be formed.
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