Polls open in Iraq elections
Polls are open across Iraq in a historic election that will help determine whether the country can move beyond sectarian strife and who will oversee the country as US troops return home.
With insurgents vowing to disrupt the polls with violence, Iraqi police said mortar fire had killed three people in north-eastern Baghdad.
Two mortar shells fell in the Ur neighbourhood, also wounding five people, as about 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political future against a coalition led by Shia religious groups and a secular alliance led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
The borders have been sealed, the airport closed and a vehicle ban enforced across Baghdad, where security remains tight.
Almost 20 million voters are eligible to turn out for the election, only the second vote for a full term of parliament since the 2003 US-led invasion.
At least three explosions could be heard in the early morning hours although there was no information about whether anyone was hurt.
At one polling place in Baghdad's Karradah neighbourhood, draconian security measures were in place with the school ringed by barbed wire, armed guards around the perimeter, and police using metal detectors to scan prospective voters.
The election has been viewed by many as a crossroads at which Iraq will decide whether to continue or reject the sectarian politics followed by Shias Sunnis and Kurds that almost destroyed the Shia-majority country held down under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-minority rule.
Mr Maliki is fighting for his political future against a coalition led by mainly Shia religious groups - the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and a party headed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
