Insurgents staged attacks against US forces, schools to be used as polling stations and political party offices today, as they pressed a bloody campaign to undermine Iraq’s weekend elections.

At least two people died in a suicide car bombing explosion in Iraq today, with 10 people injured, including four US soldiers, according to Iraqi and coalition officials.

AT least five people were killed when a suicide car bomb struck central Baghdad as 44 people died in US air strikes near the insurgent bastion of Fallujah.

INSURGENTS loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr battled fiercely with US and Iraqi forces in the holy city of Najaf yesterday in fighting that killed one US soldier, seven Iraqi civilians and seven militants.