Baghdad  - A string of politically-targeted attacks took place on Tuesday across Iraq, as the country gears up for provincial council elections on January 31.

Unknown militants set fire to a school that was set to be a polling station in the town of Falluja, about 50 kilometres west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, a security source said.

The school was completely destroyed, the source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, adding that security around polling stations would be tightened across the country.

Baghdad - Unknown militants set

Baghdad-  A car bomb exploded Tuesday near the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in eastern Mosul, killing four people and injuring one, a security source told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

The blast appears to be one of a string of politically-targeted attacks that have occurred in recent weeks, as Iraq gears up for provincial council elections on January 31.

The dead included four Iraqi army officers," the source said. A member of Kurdish milita forces, or Peshmerga, was also wounded.

Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh province, lies some 400 km north of Baghdad.

Baghdad - Election systems very often confirm the proverb that God - or the Devil - is in the details. For the elections to 14 of Iraq's 18 Provincial Councils due to take place on January 31, a so-called "open-list proportional representation" system has been chosen.

Proportional representation (PR) attempts to allocate seats in a legislature with as much correlation as possible to the votes that the political parties or candidates actually receive, thereby - theoretically - ensuring true democratic representation.

Baghdad - Key Iraqi political leaders

Nuri al-Maliki Iraq's Prime Minister and secretary-general of the Daawa party, al-Maliki's political career began as a Shiite dissident under the regime of Saddam Hussein. He fled the country fearing assassination in 1979 and served the Daawa party in exile in Syria and Iran until Saddam's ouster in 2003. Since becoming prime minister in May 2006, al-Maliki (58) has strengthened Iraq's central government and security forces, at times being accused of strongarm tactics.

Baghdad - In 1980, while Mouein al-Qatimy was still a student in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein executed his two brothers. They had refused to join the former dictator's Iraqi Baath Party.

Mouein was told that he was next.

"From that day the security forces started to follow me. They told me 'your destiny will be like them' if you don't conform," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The old regime did not give any room for opposition in Iraq," he said.

Mouein fled Iraq and lived in exile for more than 20 years.