Explosions, mortar attacks kill 38 in Iraq as voters head to the polls
Meredith Kolodner
NY Daily News
3/7/2010
An Iraqi expatriate in Dearborn, MI casts a ballot during voting for the Iraqi parliamentary election, March 6. Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Iraqis voted in huge numbers Sunday even as bombs rained down in many neighborhoods, killing 38 and wounding more than 100 people.
Militants aligned with Al Qaeda had threatened violence against Iraqis who dared to vote in the war-torn country’s second national election since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Polls closed at the end of a day that saw long lines at polling stations in Sunni neighborhoods where residents had mostly boycotted the last election in 2005.
Baghdad took the biggest hit with more than 70 mortar attacks. Bombs also exploded near polling sites in Fallujah, Baquba and Samarra.
Partial results were not due until Thursday, with full results expected on March 18, according to the United Nations.
“We don’t care about the bombs. The people will vote,” said Abbas Hussein, whose finger was coated in the purple ink, indicating he had voted.
The government deployed 200,000 police and soldiers in Baghdad to stem the violence and hundreds of thousands more around the country of 30 million people.
“My vote today is a defiance of Al Qaeda,” Khaled Abdallah, 35, told Agence France Presse as he stood amid thousands of people waiting to vote in the Sunni-dominated area of Fallujah.
The new government will face a myriad of problems including ongoing violence and economic collapse.
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