Twelve people were killed in Baghdad today, including seven soldiers and police blown up by suicide bombers, days before a poll that will test Iraq's prospects for stability as US troops prepare to leave.
Thirty-five soldiers and police were also wounded when two attackers with explosive belts struck at centres where security forces were voting early, an Interior Ministry source said.
A powerful explosion earlier killed five civilians and wounded 22 in Baghdad's northwestern district of Hurriya.
The assailants seemed bent on disrupting the special voting by troops, police, detainees and the sick, hoping to undermine the government and deter voters from turning out on Sunday.
The election is Iraq's second for a full four-year parliament since the 2003 US-led invasion.
"We have recovered the pride, unity, sovereignty and security of Iraq. Now we just need to complete that task," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told tribal leaders in Baghdad.
The Pentagon said yesterday only an "extraordinarily dire" security deterioration would warrant a slowdown in plans for the remaining 96,000 US troops to end combat operations in August and withdraw completely by the end of next year.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today the United States remained "strongly on track" to withdraw all US combat brigades by the end of August.
Today's attacks occurred despite tight security measures imposed to guard the 950,000 people eligible to vote early, most of them from Iraq's 670,000-strong security forces.
Foreign oil firms starting to invest in Iraq's vast energy resources are watching to see if security gains can be sustained against Shia militias, which the US military says are backed by Iran, and Sunni Islamist militants like al-Qaeda.
The al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq group threatened last month to prevent Sunday's election at any cost, using primarily "military" means to stop what it called a farce aimed at cementing Shia domination over Sunnis.
Reuters