US Americans were due to vote in one of the closest presidential elections in decades after a long and often bitter campaign between Republican incumbent George W. Bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry. Iraq At least five people were killed when a suicide car bomb tore through a line of cars outside Iraq's education ministry in Baghdad, in the latest attack on the interim goverment. Iraq Hundreds of people fled the Iraqi city of Fallujah after a heavy night of US air strikes, while an Iraqi cameraman working for Reuters was killed during clashes in the nearby hotspot of Ramadi. Afghanistan Islamic militants holding three foreign UN election workers in Afghanistan were locked in negotiations with groups trying to secure their release, with less than a day to go before a deadline for the killing of the captives. Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has vowed to wage a war of "attrition" against the United States until it is "bankrupt," in a message to the American people posted on the website of Al-Jazeera TV. Mideast Police stepped up security across Israel's commercial capital of Tel Aviv, a day after a 16-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber killed three people in a busy market, police said. Iran Iranian President Mohammad Khatami categorically ruled out a definitive halt to uranium enrichment as demanded by European states to end a standoff over its nuclear programme. Germany Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was to arrive in Germany on her first state visit since 1992, amid press speculation that she may apologise for the devastating World War II bombing of Dresden. Germany Hundreds of workers at German auto maker Volkswagen's Hanover plant walked off the job, as management and union representatives readied to resume deadlocked wage and job talks. Thailand The unrest in Thailand's south took another grisly turn with the beheading of a Buddhist village leader in a revenge killing for last week's deaths of 87 Muslims in the region.