Election eve lock-downs begin in Iraq
Leaflets warn voters away from 'queues of doom and death'
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 How Iraqis will vote when they head to the polls on Sunday.
 CNN's Brent Sadler on efforts to secure the Iraq-Syria border.
 Iraq's Kurdish region is booming with construction and full employment.
 Iraqis in neighboring Syria vote, but in smaller numbers than hoped.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- On the eve of Iraq's first free election in a half-century, police and the U.S. military closed and locked down bridges across the capital as a security precaution early Saturday.
Election officials made final preparations for Sunday's vote at more than 30,000 polling stations across the California-size nation, even as insurgent intimidation continued.
Meanwhile, thousands of exuberant Iraqi expatriates -- many of them exiles who fled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship -- cast their ballots in 14 countries around the world. (Full story)
"It's the greatest day in my life, the greatest feeling ever in my life," said Montador Almosawi, who voted Friday in Southgate, Michigan, near Detroit. "My feeling is that I'm doing something for my country."
Expatriate voting that began Friday will continue through Sunday.
The ability of Iraqis to vote safely in other nations contrasts with the prospect of voting in Iraq, where leaflets appeared Friday that threatened to "wash Baghdad streets with voters' blood."
At stake in the election are 275 seats of a transitional national assembly that will draft a new constitution and pick the country's next president. (Election Q&A)
Voters will also choose the members of 18 provincial councils. Residents in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region will elect a parliament.
The election marks a pivotal moment not only for the Iraqi people, but also for President Bush and his international allies.
They sent in troops to topple Saddam only to find themselves battling an intractable insurgency that has claimed nine times as many military lives as the invasion itself.
"This history is changing the world, because the advent of democracy in Iraq will serve as a powerful example to reformers throughout the entire Middle East," Bush said Friday in Washington at the formal swearing-in ceremony for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Abed Hussein al-Hinwandi, head of the Independent Election Commission of Iraq, said all the polling stations in Iraq were prepared to begin welcoming voters at 7 a.m. Sunday (11 p.m. Saturday ET).
More than 14.2 million Iraqis who are 18 and older are registered to vote -- though how many will actually show up remains a looming question, particularly in areas of central Iraq dominated by Sunnis.
More than 280,000 Iraqis registered abroad, though that figure represents only about 25 percent of those eligible to vote. The biggest group was in Iran, where 60,000 registered.
In the United States, only 25,000 registered -- barely more than 10 percent of the 235,000 Iraqis who organizers said were eligible to vote.
Adnan Pachachi, former president of the Iraqi Governing Council and one of Iraq's top Sunni figures, said Friday he was hopeful for a 20 percent turnout in four Sunni provinces -- Baghdad, Mosul, Anbar and Tikrit -- despite security fears and calls by some Sunni groups for a boycott of the vote.
Election-related attacks
Insurgents distributed leaflets in two Baghdad neighborhoods Friday threatening those who might participate in the elections.
"This is to everyone who wants to stand in the queues of elections, the queues of doom and death," said the leaflets distributed near shops, markets and homes in the al-Banook and al-Shaab neighborhoods. No particular group signed the leaflets.
Insurgents have been targeting police stations and polling centers, and threatening candidates.
Two suicide car bombs exploded near a Baghdad police station, killing four people, and a bomb severely damaged a building in Mosul that was to be used as an election center.
Two hospital employees in Mosul were shot and critically wounded. They were carrying IDs that allowed them to operate during a ban on vehicle traffic near polling sites, imposed as a security measure for the election.
Makeshift bombs killed four U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in southern and western Baghdad, and gunfire killed a fifth soldier in northern Baghdad, the military said.
A two-seat U.S. OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter crashed Friday evening about 8 in southwest Baghdad, but whether the incident was part of pre-election violence was not known. Neither is the status of the two-person crew, the U.S. military said.
Officers with the 1st Cavalry Division said hostile fire was not suspected.
Iraqi officials imposed a variety of security measures, including a ban on vehicular traffic near polling sites, travel restrictions and a nighttime curfew.
Even locations of polling stations and names of candidates weren't revealed until the final days of the campaign.
Terror arrests
Iraqi officials announced Friday that they had captured three senior associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist behind some of the insurgent attacks. (Full story)
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh told The Associated Press that security forces "are getting close to finishing off" al-Zarqawi, whose group has carried out car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.
"We will get rid of him," Saleh said.
Qassim Dawood, minister of state for national security, said security personnel had arrested "important leading members" of al-Zarqawi's terrorist group.
Saleh said a "high-level Zarqawi lieutenant" -- known as Abu Alid but whose real name is Anat Mohammed Hamat al-Kays -- was among those in custody.
He is a 31-year-old Iraqi who served as a military adviser and assisted in financing terrorist operations in Baghdad, Saleh said.
Authorities arrested the men January 17 and Thursday, but Dawood said he withheld announcing the arrests until campaigning for elections had ended to avoid "misleading conclusions."
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
