Iraq

Bombs and mortar shells pounded Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens more, as Iraqis, desperate for a brighter future, sought to cast their ballots in crucial national elections. The deadly blasts, which echoed across the capital before 7 a.m. and lasted until close to noon, threw a pall over the vote for the second four-year government since Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In contrast to national elections in 2005, when U.S. military vehicles patrolled Baghdad, only Iraqi army and police guarded the city Sunday.

A suicide bomb attack Wednesday in Anbar province's capital killed 25 people and wounded 100, including the governor. The attack raised fears that the devastating bloodletting that swept western Iraq several years ago may be returning. Gov. Qassim Fahdawi had rushed to the scene of an earlier car bombing in Ramadi and was preparing to leave the site when the suicide bomber struck. The blast killed the governor's security advisor and wounded Fahdawi and at least one other member of the provincial council.

Across a bleak desert landscape dotted with blazing oil fires on the northern edge of this ancient city, new houses are rising from the sands -- thousands of them in neat rows, mostly unfinished save for their gray cinder-block shells. A startling sight in a country still waiting for any significant reconstruction to occur, it contains clues to the biggest of the unresolved conflicts in Iraq that could yet plunge the country into chaos as U.S. forces withdraw. The homes are being built by Kurds who have poured into the northern province of Kirkuk to reassert, they say, their claim to land from which they were expelled by Saddam Hussein in an effort to create an Arab majority.

A British hostage held for 2 1/2 years by a militant Iraqi Shiite Muslim group was freed Wednesday in a move his family hailed as "the best Christmas present ever." Computer consultant Peter Moore was freed as the United States handed over to Iraqi authorities Qais Khazali, the leader of the group suspected of kidnapping him and four British security guards, and an undetermined number of Khazali's followers. The U.S. had blamed the group Asaib al Haq, or League of the Righteous, for the killings of five American soldiers.

Saddam still lives! But why? FABIAN C. GRAVO Fullerton

Re "Russian Plane Lands in Iraq Without U.N. OK," Sept. 24: What bothers me about the French and Russian planes landing in Iraq is not the humanitarian aid they may be bringing in. It's the fact that these same planes have to fly out of Iraq. What are they carrying? BOB FOSTER Los Angeles

A double suicide bombing devastated a cafe packed with youths Thursday in northwestern Iraq, killing at least 21 people and injuring at least 32, officials said, in the latest attack against a minority community. The blasts came in a deadly week in which nearly 150 people have been killed in bombings concentrated in and near the volatile northern city of Mosul and in Baghdad, heightening fears that Sunni Arab insurgents are stepping up efforts to stoke ethnic and sectarian tensions.

Abu Mujahid brags that he bombed a U.S. Army Humvee and wounded two American soldiers just last month. Now he's stumping for Sunni candidates and talking matter-of-factly about the importance of safety as Iraqis head to the polls today. "This is something like a truce so the elections will be implemented in a secure environment," said Abu Mujahid, an active member of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, an armed Sunni Arab group.