Najaf: A car bomb killed four Iranian visitors near Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrine yesterday, a day before a parliamentary election that Islamist insurgents have vowed to wreck.
The blast gutted two tour buses parked near the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, which draws millions of visitors from Iraq and Iran each year. Salim Nema, a Najaf health official, said the attack wounded 54 people, including 17 Iraqis and 37 Iranians.
At least 49 people have been killed in the past few days of campaigning, some of them soldiers and police voting early.
Today's election is a test for Iraq's young democracy, and will help decide whether the country can avoid relapsing into violence as US forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's bid to win a second term on a platform of providing services and security is under challenge from former Shi'ite partners and from a cross-sectarian, secularist group headed by former Prime Minister Eyad Allawi.
Insurgents have warned Iraqis, especially minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussain, to stay at home today.
US ambassador Chris Hill said this week's attacks in Najaf, Baghdad and elsewhere would not deter Iraqi voters.
"Overall we believe the security issues are not driving the political issues; that is, the people are going to be out there voting and we believe, so far so good," he told Reuters during a stop-off at a US military base in the northern city of Mosul.
"These are Saddamists who hope to prevent transparent democracy in Iraq. Even if all Iranians here today had been martyred, we would still come to Najaf," said Iranian pilgrim Ahmad Rafi.
An Iraqi shopkeeper Jabbar Radhi, struck a defiant tone. "Nothing will shake us, not killings, not explosions."