Triple Suicide Attacks Kill At Least 30 In Iraq; Tension High As Vote Nears

"In what has become a familiar pattern," a third suicide bomber, dressed as a police officer, detonated his bomb in the middle of a crowded hospital ward today in Iraq, NPR's Quil Lawrence reports, after two other bombers struck elsewhere. Those earlier attacks had sent multiple casualties to the medical facility.

The attacks happened in the city of Baquoba, just northeast of Baghdad. According to the Associated Press, at least 30 people died and about 50 others were wounded.

As deadly as today's attacks were, and even though there have been some other similar attacks in recent weeks, Quil reports that violence in Iraq has not been as bad as some authorities had feared in the run-up to this coming Sunday's national elections. Quil also notes that this will be Iraq's fifth nationwide poll since American forces entered the country in early 2003, but is the first election in which Iraqi forces will be in charge of security.

Quil, who is in Baghdad, filed this report for NPR's newscast:

Still, as the BBC says, there are fears in Iraq that after the elections the nation "could slide back into sectarian violence."

Also today, NPR's Jackie Northam reported for Morning Edition that the outcome of Iraq's elections could affect the U.S. role in that country for months ahead. As she notes, "this parliamentary vote comes at a particularly critical time, as the U.S. begins its phased exit of about 100,000 American forces from the country."

And Quil filed this story for Morning Edition on the alliances that Iraqi candidates are forming in the run-up to Sunday's voting: