Iraqis voted behind barbed wire and rings of police on Saturday in an election that tested the war-battered country's fragile security gains and which may ease lingering sectarian resentment still fuelling violence.

Iraq's first election since 2005 will pick local councils in 14 of its 18 provinces and show whether Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining peace as US troops begin to pull back, almost six years after the invasion to unseat Saddam Hussein.