Sunday, January 30 2005 15:14 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Iraqis turned out to vote today (Jan 30, 2005) in their country's first free election in a half-century as insurgents made good on threats of violence, launching at least three deadly suicide bombings and heavy mortar strikes at polling stations. Just hours after polls opened, 17 people were killed.

Casting his vote, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi called it "the first time the Iraqis will determine their destiny.'' The head of the main Shiite cleric-endorsed ticket, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, told reporters: "God willing, the elections will be good ... Today's voting is very important.''

Despite the heavy attacks and deaths, turnout was brisk in some Shiite Muslim and mixed Shiite-Sunni neighbourhoods, both in Baghdad and in southern cities like Basra. Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death'' south of Baghdad a mixed Sunni-Shiite area 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centres. More walked toward the polls.

"This is democracy,'' said an elderly woman in a black abaya, Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.

In nearby Mahmoudiyah, Iraqi National Guard trucks carried voters to polls.

But in a potentially troublesome sign, the polls were deserted in heavily Sunni cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra west and north of Baghdad.

In restive Mosul in the north, American troops and Iraqi soldiers roamed the streets, using loudspeakers to announce the locations of polling sites and urged people to vote. But streets were deserted.

The Governor of the mostly Sunni province of Salaheddin, Hamad Hmoud Shagti, went on the radio to urge votes. "This is a chance for you as Iraqis to assure your and your children's future,'' he said.

At one polling place in eastern Baghdad, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his AK-47 assault rifle under one arm and held the hand of an elderly blind woman to guide her to the polls.

The driving ban affected the rebels, too: Several used belts of explosives rather than cars rigged with bombs to launch their suicide missions.

In the most deadly attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a polling station in western Baghdad, killing himself, three policemen and a civilian, officials said.

Witness Faleh Hussein said the bomber approached a line of voters and detonated an explosives belt. Six people were also injured.

In a second suicide attack at a school in western Baghdad, three people and the bomber died, police said.

And in a third suicide mission, at a polling centre in a western part of Baghdad, one policemen and the bomber died, police said. Also, three people were killed when mortars landed near a polling station in Sadr City, the heart of Baghad's Shiite Muslim community. Seven to eight others were wounded, police said.

In addition, two people were killed when a mortar round missed a school serving as a polling centre and hit a nearby home in the southwestern Baghdad neighbourhood of Amel, said police Capt Mohammed Taha. Another policeman was killed in a mortar attack on a polling station in Khan al-Mahwi, about 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.