Moscow/Baku, Azerbaijan - President Ilham Aliyev is all but set to maintain his rule over post-Soviet Azerbaijan in Wednesday's elections as Russia and US continue to compete for his favour in the oil-rich Caspian state.

With Aliyev's only real opposition boycotting the vote, it is a forgone conclusion that the son of Azerbaijan's former strongman leader will be handed a five-year extension to 35 years of dynastic rule over the Caspian state.

Ten per cent of the country's 4.8 million voters in the principally Muslim nation neighboring Iran had cast their ballot two hours after polls opened at 8:00 am (0300 GMT), OSCE election monitors said. Polls were due to close at 7:00 pm (1400 GMT).

Baku/Istanbul - Three people were killed and three injured when an attacker threw two hand grenades into the Abu Bekir Mosque in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, the national news agency Trend reported Monday.

The attacker first smashed a window of the mosque and then launched the hand grenades, the report said.

The mosque is predominantly used by Wahabbis, a particularly strict Sunni version of Islam which is state religion in Saudi Arabia but did not use to be widespread in Azerbaijan in the past.

Baku - Agil Khalil, a 25-year-old reporter for the Azerbaijani opposition newspaper