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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The list of candidates
representing Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims won the
most votes in the nation's Jan. 30 election,
followed by the Kurds and then Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi's list, Iraqi election officials said Sunday.
The Shiite-dominated ticket received 4.075 million
votes. A Kurdish alliance was second with 2.175
million votes and Allawi's list was third with about
1.168 million.
Of Iraq's 14 million eligible voters, 8,456,266 cast
ballots, the commission said. That represents a
turnout of about 60 percent.
Also Sunday, insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy and a
government building near the northern Iraqi city of
Mosul, leaving at least four people dead, hospital
workers said. Two Iraqi National Guard troops were
also killed while trying to defuse a roadside bomb.
Election officials said only 3,775 valid votes were
cast in the insurgency-plagued Sunni province of
Anbar.
About 1.75 million votes were cast in the
Kurdish-ruled areas of northern Iraq. Iraqis living
in those areas also elected a new regional
parliament.
The results released Sunday will not be certified
for three days, officials said. The balloting was
the first free election in Iraq in more than 50
years and the first since Saddam Hussein was ousted
from power after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
"This is a new birth for Iraq," commission spokesman
Farid Ayar said.
In Mosul, insurgents fired on the convoy in Al-Qahira
district, just north of Mosul, sparking a battle
that left at least four people dead and two wounded,
doctors at the Al-Jumhuri Teaching Hospital said.
Insurgents also fired a rocket at the governor's
building in Mosul, killing one woman and one man, as
well as injuring four others, officials at the
hospital said.
Two Iraqi National Guard troops were killed on
Mosul's airport road while trying to diffuse a
roadside bomb, police said.
U.S. and insurgent forces have fought fierce battles
in recent days in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of
Baghdad.
Fierce clashes broke out Saturday after American
troops, responding to a mortar attack on one of
their bases, were attacked with small arms and
rocket-propelled grenades by insurgents inside a
mosque, U.S. officials said.
The insurgents disabled a U.S. Army tank and a
Stryker armored vehicle during the battle, which
raged for hours around the mosque, Lt. Col. Erik
Kurilla said. U.S. troops killed nine insurgents but
suffered no fatalities, Kurilla said..
AP
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