Insurgents bent on sabotaging Iraq's elections unleashed mortars and bombs in several cities today, killing at least 18 policemen and soldiers and targeting polling stations.
Witnesses said burnt bodies were scattered in a police compound in Baiji after a car bomb killed at least ten 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 on January 30 th.
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 Organisation 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 website.
"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 which 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 could raise the credibility of polls which 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 centres have been hit.
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 today.
Iraq's 60 per cent 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 per cent of the population and from whom Saddam drew most of his ruling class, want the vote to be postponed.
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.
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 today.
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.