Five killed in Baghdad attack as voting begins

The ballot is seen as a pivotal test of democracy six months before US combat troops withdraw from Iraq.

BAGHDAD, March 4, 2010 (AFP) - Five people were killed and at least 10 wounded in a rocket or bomb attack near a polling station in a northern district of the Iraqi capital on Thursday, security officials said.

"Five people were killed and 10 others wounded by a Katyusha rocket which landed on a residential building" in Hurriyah, said Baghdad Operations Command in a statement.

An interior ministry official, in a differing account of the attack, said five people died and 22 others were wounded as a homemade bomb struck around 500 metres (yards) from a school to be used as polling station.

The polling station, however, was not being used in Thursday's early voting for soldiers, prisoners and the sick ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

The ballot is seen as a pivotal test of democracy six months before US combat troops withdraw from Iraq ahead of a complete military pullout by the end of 2011.

Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in force to vote, in stark contrast to 2005 when they boycotted nationwide polls in protest at the rise to dominance of Iraq's long-oppressed Shiite Arab majority.

The boycott along with the 2006 bombing of revered Shiite shrine in Samarra exacerbated the sectarian divide, sparking violence which killed tens of thousands of Iraqis that has only eased in the past two years.