Posted by
Defend America on Sunday, March 07, 2010 7:14:23 AM
Deadly Blasts Shake Baghdad as Iraqis Vote
Sunday, March 07, 2010
BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted Sunday in an
election testing the mettle of the country's still-fragile democracy as
insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of
mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.
About
19 million Iraqis are eligible to vote for who will lead the country
after U.S. forces pull out, in an election that will determine whether
Iraq can overcome the jagged sectarian divisions that have defined it
since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Insurgents
who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the
Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation — launched a spate of
attacks as polls opened across the city and country.
At
least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after an explosion leveled
a building, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people
in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.
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, said police and hospital officials.
In
the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb inside
a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul
Hussein. There were also explosions elsewhere in the country, but no
further reports of fatalities.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588273,00.html