Iraqis Begin Historic Vote Amid Attacks

9:15am (Baghdad time): [Associated Press] ...Iraqis voted Sunday in their country's first free election in a half-century, as insurgents made good on threats of violence with a suicide bombing at a polling station and mortar attacks in several cities.   Police say the suicide bomb attack in western Baghdad killed one policemen and wounded several people.  [Note: MSNBC is reporting that the attack on the polling station was carried out by a suspect wearing a suicide bomb vest].  Heavy explosions and a series of mortar attacks broke out across Baghdad, and in several other cities, including Baquoba, Basra and Mosul, less than two hours after voting began.  Two mortars hit near the Ministry of Interior on the city's eastern edge, one witness said. And there were gunfire exchanges in the New Baghdad area in the eastern part of the city.  The violence came after insurgents had rocketed the U.S. Embassy in downtown Baghdad late Saturday, killing two Americans.  [MSNBC is also now reporting a second suicide car bomb attack outside a joint Iraqi-U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad, killing one Iraqi policeman.]

Update #1, 12:00pm (Baghdad time): News agencies are reporting at least five suicide bombings and nearly 20 dead by noon on Sunday in Iraq.  [Reuters] A suicide bomber strapped with explosives blew himself up at a polling centre in western Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding nine, police sources said.  Earlier a suicide car bomb killed a policeman outside a polling station and another suicide bomber on foot blew himself up among voters queueing at another centre in western Baghdad, causing an unknown number of casualties.  A blast at a voting centre in the Sadr City slums killed at least four people.  A mortar attack in southern Baghdad killed at least two and mortar rounds also rained down and other cities, including Mosul, Baquba and Hilla, where one person was killed.  An explosion hit a polling site in the southern city of Basra, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Update #2, 7:00pm (Baghdad time): With polls now closed, Iraqi election officials report a 57% turnout and between 35-45 people killed after a rapid series of suicide bombings, mortar rounds, and other insurgent attacks in Baghdad and other cities across the country.  According to eyewitnesses, polls were largely deserted throughout the day in many cities of the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, particularly Fallujah, Ramadi and Beiji.  In Baghdad's Sunni Arab neighborhood of Azamiyah, the district's four polling centers failed to open at all.  In Samarra, north of Baghdad, stations were empty for hours, but later hundreds of eager voters showed up.  Several hundred people also turned out to vote in eastern regions of the restive Sunni city of Mosul, a hotbed for recent insurgent violence.  But in western parts of Mosul, clashes erupted between militants and Iraqi soldiers.

Al-Qaida's Committee in Iraq--led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--has claimed responsibility for the following incidents on election day:

- At least four coordinated attacks on election centers in and around Baghdad
- A rocket barrage fired at the protected Green Zone in Baghdad
- The destruction of a U.S. armored vehicle in Mosul
- The destruction of an Iraqi army Humvee with a large roadside bomb in Mosul
- Two separate mortar attacks on the same election center in the Wahdah neighborhood of Mosul
- A mortar and small arms attack on an election center in the Al-Nahrwan neighborhood of Mosul
- A small arms attack on the election center in the Andalusia neighborhood of Mosul
- A mortar attack on the election center in the Palestine neighborhood of Mosul.
- Various other alleged operations in Tel Afar, Ar-Ramadi, and the Diyala province

Zarqawi's organization also blamed the U.S. for enforcing a "media blackout" in order to portray an image of relative calm in Iraq during Sunday's elections.  In reality, according to Al-Qaida, "the Sunni-dominated regions were the scenes of heated confrontations with the crusaders and the apostates and the elections did not happen there."  The group further promised to soon release names of its "martyrs" from today's military operations.