A rocket hit the U.S. embassy inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on Saturday, killing two people and wounding at least six, a diplomatic source said.

An explosion could be heard across the city center and sirens sounded in the Green Zone shortly after the blast. A U.S. embassy official confirmed the blast.

"It was a rocket. Two people are dead and at least six are wounded," a diplomatic source said.

Meanwhile, seventeen people were killed on the eve of Iraq's poll as fighters opposed to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq continued their campaign to disrupt the elections

As security forces barricaded streets, sealed Iraq's borders and closed Baghdad airport, more than a dozen polling stations were attacked and bloodshed continued to stain the electoral countdown.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appealed to Iraqis to defy violence "trying to break us and to break our world" and exhorted voters to cast ballots in Iraq's first multi-party election for half a century.

Bomb attack

With just a day to go before the polls, a bomber blew himself up outside a US-Iraqi security centre in the town of Khanaqin, northeast of Baghdad near the border with Iran.

The US military said three Iraqi soldiers and five civilians were killed. No Americans were hurt.

Most other attacks were concentrated north of Baghdad where fighting has been fiercest and where many Sunnis plan to boycott the election.

Three Iraqis were killed in a roadside bombing in the city of Samarra, and a rocket attack on an Iraqi army base in the town of Duluiya killed three soldiers.

Fighters blew up an explosives-laden donkey cart outside a polling station, killing a guard, in the town of Sharqat, south of Mosul, witnesses said. Mortar rounds hit a voting centre in the refinery town of Baiji, wounding four guards, after two other sites were dynamited there overnight.

Three Iraqi contractors abducted a week ago were found shot dead in the town of Balad. Fighters brand all Iraqis working with US forces as collaborators and have killed dozens.

The climate of intimidation has been so prevalent that most candidates have kept their names secret.

There are fears that the turnout will be lowest in Sunni Arab areas, where violence has been bloodiest.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Iraqi boy runs past a car just as it explodes in front of a school scheduled to be used as a voting center in Baghdad, January 28, 2005. (Reuters)