Pre-election attacks claim at least 12 more lives in Iraq

Eleven Iraqis and a US Marine were killed in election violence today as insurgents clashed with US troops and blew up a school slated to serve as a polling centre.

Another US soldier died in an accident, a day after the deadliest toll for US troops since the start of the war.

The Marine was killed and five others injured when insurgents launched mortars at their base near Iskandariyah, about 50 30 miles south of Baghdad.

Australian officials announced that one of two car bombing on Baghdad's dangerous airport road Wednesday had injured eight Australian soldiers riding in a convoy escorting Australian government officials.

In a continuation of the pre-election violence plaguing the country, three Iraqi civilians were killed in a house in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, when a car bomb exploded nearby, said Alaadin Mohammed, a doctor at the local hospital.

Another three Iraqis were killed and seven injured when a roadside bomb missed a US convoy in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

An Iraqi army soldier was killed and five civilians and two Iraqi policemen were wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded near a patrol in Baqouba.

Near Tikrit, a roadside bomb killed one Iraqi bystander and narrowly missed another passing US military convoy, police said.

In Samarra, armed men blew up a local school administration building after first ordering the staff to leave. The destroyed building had been scheduled to be a voting centre in Sunday's elections.

Sporadic clashes also erupted in Samarra between US troops and armed men, killing one Iraqi civilian and injuring another, Mohammed said.

In Ramadi, capital of the insurgent-plagued province of Anbar west of Baghdad, another Iraqi National Guard soldier was killed when insurgents attacked a joint US-Iraqi force guarding a voting centre at a school.

The body of a colonel in the former Iraqi intelligence during Saddam's era, Talib Minshid, was found in Baqouba two days after he had been abducted by armed men.

A US soldier also died from a gunshot wound on a base near Tikrit in what the American military command called an accident.

A militant website today warned Iraqis that voting in Sunday's elections would be the equivalent of choosing a god other than Allah.

The statement, purportedly by Ansar al-Sunnah Army, one of the most active insurgent groups in Iraq, said it was a "final warning" before the elections and claimed that the group's fighters would reach those who intend to vote.

US-led coalition forces have struggled to maintain order for the upcoming vote, particularly in the Anbar province where some Sunni clerics have urged a boycott. The threat is the latest in a series of such warnings on the internet that have increased as Sunday's elections near.

Calling elections and democracy a "farce", the statement said voting was "nothing but electing deities to worship other than Allah".

The statement threatened Iraqis "heading or being present at the (election) centres of this farce and the dirty infidel game".

Ansar al-Sunnah group has been responsible for many of the kidnappings and attacks on military and Iraqi police targets.

The statement also threatened violence after the elections.

"Election centres will be targets for Mujahedeen," the statement said. "Even those who haven't voted … are not safe from the hands of the Mujahedeen that will get to them even after the elections."

Al-Qaida's branch in Iraq issued a statement yesterday warning of more attacks and asking Iraqis to stay away from voting centres.