A group of gunmen stormed the Libyan parliament on Wednesday, disrupting the session to elect a new prime minister.
The gunmen dashed into the parliament hall when the interim parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), was in second round to select a new prime minister to substitute ousted Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan.
Report says the gunmen fired several rounds, leaving some wounded, while some lawmakers run away from the parliament building.
The GNC was forced to abandon the vote on the two candidates who outstood the total seven candidates in the first round voting.
Ahmed Motaiq, a 42-year-old businessman from the western city of Misrata, and Omar Hassi, a political science professor from the eastern city of Benghazi, were set to compete in the second round.
Meanwhile, the identities of the gunmen and their motives were not immediately known.
There is heavy security across the country as Iraqis vote in its first parliamentary elections since US troops withdrew three years ago.
Polling began at 07:00 local time (04:00 GMT) and closes at 18:00.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is hoping to win a third term in office amid a growing insurgency in the west of the country.
Iraq is experiencing its worst unrest since 2008, with 160 people killed in the past week alone.
Some 22 million Iraqis are registered to vote, with almost 50,000 polling stations open across the country.
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Baghdad says the streets of the capital are almost empty because it is in lockdown.
He says that many of the voters will have to go on foot – the authorities have banned cars for the day in an effort to stop suicide attacks and car bombers.
The first incidence of violence reported on Wednesday was in the town of Dibis, near Kirkuk in the north, where police said a roadside bomb had killed two women walking to a polling station.
Wave of attacks
While it is difficult to predict the outcome of the poll, Mr Maliki is still expected to be a pivotal figure in the coalition-building process which will follow the election.
His State of Law alliance, a Shia coalition, has largely avoided the fragmentation seen by other political blocs since the last election.
The campaign has so far been a violent one, with 50 people killed on Monday when soldiers, police and overseas citizens cast their votes.
One bomb struck a Kurdish political rally in the town Khanaqin, killing 30 people and wounding at least 50 others.
On Friday, at least 31 people were killed as a series of blasts targeted a Shia election rally in Baghdad. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – an al-Qaeda offshoot – said it had carried out the attacks.
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