BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of thousands of supporters of militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr voted Friday to choose candidates to run in national elections in January.

The election was called by al-Sadr to restore his party's popularity, which was shaken in elections early this year. Supporters of the cleric are known as Sadrists.

Friday's primary, Iraq's first since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, was open to nonparty members. More than 670 people, including 83 women, competed to fill more than 50 candidates' positions in January parliamentary elections.

Sadrist officials said that more than 1.5 million people voted during the nine hours the polls were open.

"I believe this step will restore to our Sadr trend its previous popular support that declined a little in the last provincial council elections early this year," shoe vendor Qassim Hashim said after voting.

The Sadrist movement and other Shiite parties lost much of their support in Shiite provinces in southern and central Iraq to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the provincial election held in January. Many Iraqis had concluded that the Shiite parties failed to deliver public services and provoked sectarian conflict.

In a statement posted on his movement's Web site, al-Sadr described the primary elections as "a first step to liberate Iraq politically."

VIOLENCE IN NORTH

A man stood up during Friday prayers in the northern town of Tal Afar and shot the prayer leader at point-blank range with an assault rifle, then fired on worshippers and detonated a suicide belt, killing 15 people, witnesses said. The attack wounded 100 others inside the Taqwa mosque. Tal Afar, in the northern province of Nineveh, is among several areas contested by various ethnic and religious groups in Iraq's north. The mosque was attended primarily by Arab Sunnis.

REFUGEE SETTLEMENT UP

More than 30,000 Iraqis have moved to the United States under a resettlement program that began in 2007, while much smaller numbers have gone to other countries, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday. The big U.S. intake came after Washington was heavily criticized for taking in too few Iraqi refugees. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees has recommended to the participating countries the names of 82,500 Iraqis who should be moved for their protection.

McClatchy Newspapers, The Associated Press