Explosions in Iraqi cities as polls open

Several loud explosions rocked central Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Baquba- shortly after the start of voting on Sunday.

The blasts came from different districts in the centre of the capital and police said an explosion had jolted the Mansur district, an upper class area of western Baghdad.

Iraqi police said the Mansur attack was- a car bomb- at a makeshift polling station in the Zahra school. Sources said one six people were killed, including an Iraqi security member. Thirteen others were injured.- 

In northern Iraq, six explosions rocked Mosul early on Sunday but there were no reported casualties. One polling station visited by the media was empty.

Similarly, a mortar shell landed near a polling station in the southern city of Basra, but there were no reports of causalities.

In the northern city of Balad, a mortar attack on a polling station killed one woman and wounded another woman and her child.

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