BAGHDAD, 29 January 2005 — Thousands of exiles started voting yesterday in 14 countries across the globe in historic Iraqi elections. At home, insurgents kept up their campaign to intimidate people ahead of tomorrow’s vote, killing eight Iraqis and five American soldiers in bomb and mortar attacks. The interim Iraqi government claimed capturing two more aides to Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.
In countries ranging from Australia to the United States, via the Middle East and Europe, voters turned out to elect the 275-member Transitional National Assembly, two days ahead of the poll in Iraq.
In Jordan, 60-year-old Lamia Jamal was the first Iraqi of the 20,000-plus registered there to make her choice on how to fill the vacuum left by Saddam Hussein, removed by US-led troops 22 months ago.
“She was very proud, very happy and wanted to be the first so she could tell her grandchildren,” said Astrid Meister, a spokeswoman for the International Organization of Migration (IOM), organizing the expatriate vote. “So far so good,” was the verdict of Jean Philippe Chauzy, an IOM spokesman at its Geneva headquarters, who predicted a good turnout among the relatively small numbers who had signed up to vote.
“Of the 280,000 people who bothered to go in person to register to vote, we believe that the participation over the three days... will be high,” he said.
The figure of 280,000 is only around a quarter of those eligible to take part, and far below estimates made at the start of the nine-day registration process on Jan. 17.
The first vote was cast by Shimon Haddad, manager of a polling center in the suburb of Fairfield, Sydney. “I’m proud to vote for the election. We have been looking forward to this time (for the) last 50 years,” he said.
The heaviest polling was in Iran, where more than 60,000 people from the large population exiled from its neighbor to the west were registered to vote.
There were scenes of celebration at some Middle Eastern centers, with electors cheering as Nazem Kazem Saoodi, a 60-year-old physician, became the first to vote in Dubai.
“Yes, we did it!” shouted Ali Al-Kabeer, clapping his hands after casting his ballot, breaking into tears as he hugged his wife. Kabeer said he had “been waiting for this moment for 54 years.”
“I’m doing this for my children ... it’s the first step in a thousand-mile journey.”
Five US soldiers and at least eight Iraqis were killed yesterday in a string of attacks, two days before Iraq’s landmark elections which insurgents have vowed to drench in blood.
A US helicopter also crashed in the Baghdad area, two days after the crash of a transport helicopter left 31 US troops dead, inflicting on the US military its heaviest loss in a single incident since the March 2003 invasion.
In Baghdad, Lt. Col. James Hutton said three US soldiers were killed and another was wounded when a makeshift bomb exploded in a western district. Another two soldiers were killed and three wounded in two separate incidents in the capital.
An OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, a reconnaissance helicopter from the same Baghdad-based division, crashed in a southwestern district of the capital, but there was no word on the fate of the two-man crew.
“At this time, we have no evidence of hostile fire playing a role in the helicopter going down,” Col. Keith Walker said in a statement.
In the worst attack, four people were killed when a car bomb went off near a power station in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dura. The government announced the arrest of two close aides to Zarqawi and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said the arrests had put the security forces closer to capturing the Jordanian-born militant.
The two men were identified as Salah Salam Dubaig Al-Ubaidi, also known as Abu Saif, and Ali Mohamed Yassin Al-Isssawi.
— Additional input from agencies
