BAGHDAD, Iraq - Rebel strikes across Baghdad killed five people today - including three paramilitary policemen and a government official - as insurgents kept up their campaign to derail Iraq's upcoming general election.

Wednesday's launch of the campaign for the Jan. 30 vote for a 275-member National Assembly was marred by an explosion near one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines in the southern city of Karbala.

The attack in the heartland of Iraqi's majority Shiite population killed eight people and wounded 40, including a prominent cleric, Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee. Local leaders said the attack was an attempt by militants to fuel a civil war between the Shiites and the minority Sunnis.

The start of election campaigning was subdued due to security fears.

In the capital, unidentified gunmen today shot dead Qassim Mehawi, deputy head of the Communications Ministry as he was heading to work, police officials said.

Eight of Mehawi's bodyguards were injured in the attack and were taken to the hospital.

In western Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a passing SUV, badly damaging the vehicle, police said. After the blast, gunmen opened up on the survivors with automatic fire, killing a foreigner and wounding two others, Al-Khadra police commissioner Ali Hussein Al-Hamadani said.

There was no immediate information on their nationality.

Al-Hamadani said three Iraqi National Guardsmen died and six others were injured when another roadside bomb exploded in western Baghdad as their pickup truck was driving by.

And a U.S. soldier was wounded when the tank he was riding in struck a mine near Beiji, 150 miles north of Baghdad, a spokesman said.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces raided the Baghdad home of two Egyptian employees of an Iraqi mobile phone company belonging to Egypt's telecommunications giant Orascom, said Dina Abu Neda, a spokeswoman for Orascom Telecom.

Abu Neda said the U.S. and Iraqi forces also confiscated thousands of dollars from the men's home. "We don't know why they were detained, it came as a big surprise to us," Abu Neda said.

On the final day of candidate registration on Wednesday, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and Washington favorite, announced his 240-member list of candidates, pitting him against the slate embraced by Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. About 90 parties and political movements have applied to be represented on ballots.

Heading the al-Sistani-backed United Iraqi Alliance list is Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution and chief of its armed wing, the Iran-based Badr Brigade, during Saddam's rule.

In the election, each faction will win a number of seats in the assembly proportional to the percentage of votes it gets nationwide - meaning the highest-listed candidates on each roster are most likely to be elected.