Voting starts. AP updates:

Iraqis lined up amid tight security Thursday to vote in a historic parliamentary election the U.S. hopes will lay the groundwork for American troops to withdraw, with a mortar landing near the heavily fortified Green Zone just minutes after polls opened. No injuries were reported, but the blast underscored concerns of violence despite a promise by Sunni insurgent groups not to attack the polls. Dozens of Iraqis waiting to cast ballots at Baghdad's city hall went through three separate checkpoints as police searched each person entering the downtown site. "The first voting process to choose a parliament with a four-year term in Iraq has started," senior election official Abdul-Husein Hendawi said.

Buildings still lie in ruins, pulverized by one of the most intense urban battles of the Iraq war. The city is sealed off, with only residents allowed into or out of the tight security cordon. But despite continuing violence and intimidation in Iraq's insurgent heartland, turnout for Thursday's election in Fallujah, once the effective headquarters of the insurgency, was expected to be high.

Aljazeera.net: Iraq polls hinge on Sunni participation.

Jerusalem Post: Iraq locks down ahead of elections.

Knight-Ridder Washington: Building coalitions seen as key to success in Iraq

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Iraq election at a glance

BBC News: Iraq election: Turning point at last?

Officer's Club blog writes about preparing for the election.

Scotsman (UK): More than 1,000 Sunni clerics in Iraq issued a fatwa yesterday, telling members of their minority Muslim community to vote in tomorrow's elections. The call came as violence marred the last day of campaigning, with one candidate killed and another narrowly escaping an assassination attempt. Most Sunnis boycotted the elections to an interim parliament on 30 January. But Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, who heads the government agency in charge of the maintaining Sunni mosques and shrines, said: "This is a fatwa from more than 1,000 Iraqi scholars who are urging Iraqis to vote."

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL: Iraq Election: Blood and ink

Nancy Yousef, Knight-Ridder: Election will set a course for Iraq. Plastered on the pervasive blast walls that protect buildings on nearly every major thoroughfare in Baghdad are dozens of poster-sized ads in rows, aimed at winning over passing motorists. Some have pictures of smiling politicians, while others show stone-faced religious leaders whose dogma could shape the next government. Iraqis will head to the polls Thursday for a National Assembly election that could offer a last chance to move a country that's rife with sectarian division and violence toward reconciliation and stability. If all works well, the elections might pave the way toward starting an orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops. [...]

Times of India: In a rare joint statement, al-Qaida in Iraq and four other Islamic extremist groups denounced the election as a 'satanic project' and said that "to engage in the so-called political process" violates "the legitimate policy approved by God." The groups vowed to "continue our jihad (holy war) ... to establish an Islamic state ruled by the book (the Quran) and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad".

AP: Iraqi expatriates turned out to vote Tuesday in national elections, leaving voting stations with ink-stained fingers and expressing hope for the violence-torn country many fled during Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.

Washington Post FAQ: Iraq Parliamentary Elections

The voting has begun.

Coverage continues on Gateway Pundit.

Mohammed of Iraq the Model goes deep inside the Iraqi election.

Zaman Online (Turkey): Iraq's New Constitution Passed by a Hairsbreadth

Aljazeera.net: Sunni parties unite for Iraq election. Three mostly Sunni Arab political parties have announced that they have formed a coalition to run in Iraq's parliamentary election in December. The three - the General Conference for the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue - have been urging Sunnis to take part in the December 15 election. They named their coalition the Iraqi Accord, said Ayad al-Samarrie, a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party. Sunni Arabs, to whom belonged all the Iraqi presidents since the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921, largely boycotted the January 30 election that produced Iraqi's current mostly Shia and Kurdish interim government.

Scotland on Sunday: Iraq heading towards a new constitution despite Sunni rejection.

AP: Iraq Election Officials See Little Fraud.