At least 72 percent of eligible Iraqi voters had turned out by 2 p.m. (1100 GMT) nationwide in thecountry's historic elections, an election official said Sunday.

The percentage of registered voters who had gone to the polls in some Baghdad neighborhoods reached 95 percent, said Adel al-Lami, a member of the Independent Electoral Commission.

But he offered no overall figures of the actual number of Iraqis who have voted.

Around 13 million Iraqis, about half of the population, registered to vote in the election. But some eligible voters did not register due to intimidation or because they were boycotting the polls.

The figure announced by al-Lami was higher than most expected.

Earlier, Carlos Valenzuela, the top US adviser to commission, offered a much more cautious assessment. Several political partiestrying to keep track of the voting also said turnout in the election could reach 50 percent.

"The reports we are receiving indicate that the turnout will hit more than 50 percent. Iraqis are looking at these elections asan issue of dignity," said Planning Minister Mehdi al-Hafedh Hafedh, whose secular Independent Democrats had sent supervisors to monitor the voting process.

Oil Minister Thamir al-Ghadhban, a leading candidate in interimPrime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral list, also said his party'smonitors were reporting a big turnout.

"We are seeing huge numbers across Iraq who want to defeat terror with their vote," he said, "I will not be surprised if turnout exceeds half."

In Iraq's Kurdistan and the mostly Shiite south, the turnout isoverwhelming. However, few Iraqis are voting in Sunni areas due tolack of security and calls for a boycott from some Sunni parties hostile to the US military presence.

Also on Sunday, five people were killed and another 14 were injured when a bomb tore apart a bus ferrying Iraqi Sunni Muslim voters to a polling station, police said.

The bomb planted inside the bus blew up at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT) asthe Sunni Arab voters drove from their village of Abu Alwan to thelarger town of Mahawil.

Meanwhile, the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, claimed responsibility for suicide attacks on several polling stations in Iraq.

"Lions from the martyrs' brigade of the al-Qaida Organization for Holy War in Iraq attacked several polling stations in Baghdad and elsewhere," said a statement posted on an Islamic website.

Several suicide bombing attacks occurred in the capital and other parts of the country, causing some casualties.

The Iraqi parliamentary election began at 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Sunday to start a new course of the oil-rich but violence-shattered country.

The 275-seat National Assembly will be formed by proportional representation of votes with a one-year mandate. It will choose a transitional government and draft a permanent constitution put fora national referendum by Oct. 15.

A new government and parliament will then be elected through another ballot by the end of this year under the guidance of the constitution.