Insurgents bent on sabotaging Iraq's January 30 elections unleashed mortars and bombs in several cities Monday, killing at least 18 policemen and soldiers and targeting polling stations.  

Witnesses said burned bodies were scattered in a police compound in Baiji after a car bomb killed at least 10 people in the oil refining town in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad. At least 20 people were wounded, mostly police.

Near Baquba, another guerrilla stronghold northeast of the capital, gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint and killed eight soldiers, a National Guard officer said.

Polling stations came under fire in two other cities. A security guard was killed and guerrillas also engaged US troops protecting a school designated for voting.

A statement from followers of al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, said they had carried out an attack in Baquba and issued a new warning to Iraqi security forces, who are struggling to protect themselves.

"A lion from the martyrs' battalion of al-Qaeda Organization of Holy War in Iraq carried out a heroic attack against the headquarters of atheism and tyranny in Baquba today," said the statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

"This is the fate of all the agents of the Jews and crusaders," it added, without elaborating.

A survey in the independent al-Mada newspaper that found two-thirds of registered voters in Baghdad intending to cast their ballots may raise hopes for a US-backed interim government bracing for widespread bloodshed on election day.

A high turnout in the capital of 5-6 million people could raise the credibility of polls that are expected to be marred by suicide bombings in the country of 27 million.

Clashes erupted in the southern town of Musayib after guerrillas fired on a polling station. One guard was killed and two wounded. One insurgent was also wounded, police said.

In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents fired mortars at a school that will serve as a polling station and US troops guarding it retaliated.

The latest violence came amid concerns that guerrillas were stepping up efforts to stir up sectarian tensions ahead of the polls to elect a 275-member national assembly.

Iraqi security forces have borne the brunt of insurgent attacks as the polls approach. Election officials have also been repeatedly attacked and voting centers have been hit.

Police in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, said mortars were fired overnight at three schools in the city that will be used as voting centers. They said nobody was wounded.

"Your brothers from al-Qaeda Organization of Holy War in Iraq ... destroyed three election centers in Basra, may God end its occupation," Zarqawi's group said in a Web statement.

Some 650 extra British troops have arrived in Basra, which is in the mainly Shi'ite south where support for the elections is strong, to help maintain security for the polls, a British military official said Monday.

Iraq's 60-percent Shi'ite majority expect the polls to cement their new dominance of Iraqi politics after years of oppression during the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Many Sunni Arabs, who make up around 20 percent of the population and from whom Saddam drew most of his ruling class, want the vote to be postponed.

Gunmen killed the son of a representative of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the latest victim of a campaign waged by extremists against followers of Iraq's top Shi'ite spiritual leader, officials said Monday. They opened fire on cleric Habib Salman's son while he was at an Internet cafe in the southern town of Numaniyah Sunday, witnesses said.

Shi'ite officials said he was the latest victim of efforts by Sunni militants to capitalize on divisions over the election to try to provoke a major sectarian conflict.

Guerrilla violence and intimidation in Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland means that even many Sunnis who want to vote are too afraid. Several major Sunni Arab parties say they will boycott the polls after their calls for a delay went unheeded.

Washington says vote should go ahead

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the US government insist the polls should go ahead, although they concede some areas may be too unsafe for voting.

Some of those areas, such as Ramadi in the Sunni heartland, witnessed fresh bloodshed Monday.

Three Iraqi civilians were killed and nine wounded in the western town after a suicide bomber attacked a US patrol and American troops opened fire, witnesses and hospital officials said. There was no immediate word on any US casualties.

The government says it is preparing a range of measures to protect voting stations. It said the army had killed 35 insurgents and arrested 64 others in clashes west of Baghdad in recent days.

A total of about 300,000 US-led foreign and Iraqi forces are expected to provide security on election day.

Around the world, expatriate Iraqis began registering to vote Monday. The first to do so was Nassima Barzani, 68, in Sydney.

"I lost lots of friends and relatives in Saddam Hussein's regime and I have never voted before," she told Reuters. "I am voting for our future. I am coming for freedom, democracy and human rights." 

(Chinadaily.com.cn via agencies, January 18, 2005)