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updated 3:53 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq’s interior minister said Monday that insurgents used a handicapped child as one of the suicide bombers who launched attacks on election day.

Falah al-Naqib told reporters in Baghdad that 38 attacks were carried out on polling stations in Iraq on Sunday and that one of the suicide bombings was carried out by a disabled child.

“A handicapped child was used to carry out a suicide attack on a polling site,” al-Naqib said. “This is an indication of what horrific actions they are carrying out.”

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He gave no other details about the attack, but police at the scene of one the Baghdad blasts said the bomber appeared to have Down Syndrome.

Al-Naqib praised an Iraqi citizen who was killed while blocking one suicide bomber from reaching a crowd of people outside at polling station.

Iraq’s prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said the seven men who carried out suicide attacks near polling stations Sunday were foreigners. In all, insurgent attacks and suicide bombers left at least 44 people dead Sunday.