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Mr. Filin, who spoke to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, also said he blamed himself for not taking the threats seriously enough and said he had turned down an offer of a driver and bodyguard, though he did not say who made the offer. Mr. Filin suffered third-degree burns on his face and eyes, and is at risk of losing some of his eyesight. Galina Stepanenko, a principal dancer with the company, was named acting artistic director on Tuesday.

Mr. Filin said he believed he was attacked because of his work at the ballet company and that investigators had a good chance of identifying his assailant.

"When everything is going well, that may also displease someone," Mr. Filin said, when asked whether the attack was planned by someone within the company. "But I don't want to talk too much about this subject, let the investigators do that. They will definitely find the answer. If this crime remains unsolved, then I don't even know what to believe in."

Mr. Filin's interview, which was posted online early Tuesday, is sure to revive speculation about a crime that left Moscow's cultural circles aghast. Police officials have said they are looking into various theories, including a dispute over money or business, but officials in the Bolshoi and Mr. Filin's associates said they were sure the crime could be traced to a professional grudge.

Mr. Filin made pointed comments about dissent from within the company, suggesting it had been allowed to grow to dangerous proportions. Asked by the reporter about "attacks" that followed the theater's grand reopening in 2011 — likely a reference to harsh public criticism — Mr. Filin said they could have been prevented.

"I think one decision would have been enough to stop these dirty attacks," he said. "And if today, a decision does not result from the attack on me, I don't know what needs to happen in our country, so that the leadership of the country and the security services will pay attention." He said the Bolshoi's company is internationally recognized as the world's best, but "from inside, we always hear some sort of dissatisfaction," and that "It is important to put a stop to these conversations." Mr. Filin was in good spirits and optimistic about his recovery, saying he cared very little about physical disfigurement and was focused on continuing his work at the Bolshoi. He said the acid had hit his right eye and caused serious damage, and that "they promise to save the left eye." He said he would undergo further surgery on his eyes — his second and third since the attack — on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"I am not in bad spirits," he said. "Sometimes I am able to see all the fingers on my hand. This give rise to optimism and hope." He went on to say that the acid attack was far less painful than an experience he once had on stage, when he danced "Swan Lake" on a broken leg, because his mother was sitting in the front row and he didn't want to disappoint her.

"I understood, that if they shut the curtain and announced that something had happened to me, Mama would not tolerate that," he said. "So I danced until intermission."

A Russian diplomat in Damascus told the Interfax news service that around 100 Russians were leaving, mostly people "whose houses are destroyed, who come from various 'hot spots.' " The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that no diplomats were leaving and that the flights did not mark the beginning of an evacuation.  

"This is not in any way an evacuation; what's going on is that they are sending everyone who wants to go on these two airplanes," the diplomat was quoted as saying. The emergency flights are free, he said, and may be necessary for families "whose homes have been destroyed, and who are left without food and shelter."

He added that it was not yet clear whether further flights would be necessary.

"This question will be determined according to the situation," he said. "If there are people who want to go, they will be sent out. We are not talking about a mandatory evacuation." A spokesman at the Russian Embassy in Damascus declined to comment on the Interfax report.

The Associated Press said four buses carrying 80 people, mostly women and children and some men, crossed into Lebanon.

The question of evacuation is highly sensitive in Russia, which has served as the main international supporter of President Bashar al-Assad and his forces during almost two years of unrest that has turned into civil war.

Analysts said a full-scale evacuation would send a deeply discouraging political message to Mr. Assad, and present a logistical challenge. Russia has an estimated 30,000 citizens in Syria, including government and military personnel, private contractors and thousands of women married to Syrian men.

Last week, Russia announced that it was closing its consulate in Aleppo in the wake of a double bombing that killed 82 people, and security officials told the newspaper Kommersant last month that the authorities were prepared to send 100 armed intelligence officers to help Russian diplomats leave Damascus if necessary.

Russian arms manufacturers also have military advisers in place to assist the Syrian military with air-defense systems purchased from Russia.

The bus journey on Tuesday showed that the Syrian authorities still control the main highway to Lebanon, a crucial supply route. But elsewhere, activists reported a string of violent clashes from the south to the north of the country.

In an indication of fresh sectarian violence, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and relies on a network of activists inside Syria for its information, said nine rebel soldiers had been wounded in the town of Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey, where persistent clashes have been reported between Arabs and Kurds.

Syrian government helicopters were also said to have attacked a suburb of Dara'a in the south, where the uprising started in March 2011. Further airstrikes were reported in suburbs ringing Damascus, the capital, while militants said there had been renewed fighting near a road leading to Damascus International Airport.

Farther north, government and rebel forces fought for control of areas of Homs and Aleppo, Syria's most populous city.

MASNAA, Lebanon (AP) —

Four buses carrying Russian citizens escaping the Syrian civil war have crossed into Lebanon.

A Russian embassy official traveling with the group on Tuesday says about 80 people, mostly women and children, are on the buses.

Several men also have been seen in the first group of Russian citizens being evacuated from Syria.

Russia sent two planes to Beirut that will take the group home later.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, blame is likely to fall on Sunni insurgents such as al-Qaida's local franchise. The group often uses indiscriminate car bombs to sow fear among Iraq's Shiite majority and undermine the government's authority.

The killing began in the morning when a parked car exploded in Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, targeting a security checkpoint there. The explosion killed five, including two soldiers who were manning the checkpoint, and wounded 15 people, according to police.

Then, a suicide car bomb struck near a checkpoint in the northern Baghdad suburb of Taji, killing seven people and wounding 26.

A teacher who witnessed the attack, Nasseer Rahman, 35, said he was sitting in a minibus waiting to pass the checkpoint when the attack happened about 120 meters (yards) away.

"The useless checkpoint was the reason for the high casualties because dozens of cars were backed up in long lines before the checkpoint that got hit," he said. "As soon as the blast struck, we got off the minibus and ran to the site of the explosion. We saw several cars on fire and pools of blood, and everybody was screaming for help."

Later, another parked car loaded with explosives detonated in the northwestern Baghdad neighborhood of Shula, killing five and wounding 15, according to police.

Medics in a nearby hospital confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Violence has fallen since the peak of the insurgency in Iraq several years ago, but lethal attacks still occur frequently.

The new violence comes amid rising ethnic and sectarian tension following the arrest last month of bodyguards assigned to the Sunni Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi. Rallies have swept the Sunni-dominated Anbar province and other parts of the country where Iraq's minority Sunnis live to protest alleged discrimination by the Shiite-led government.

An al-Qaida affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, recently claimed responsibility for a number of unspecified attacks, as well as last week's assassination of a Sunni parliamentarian who played a leading role in the fight against the militant group.

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Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed to this report.

At a polling station in the leafy Abu Tor neighborhood of Jerusalem, a steady stream of voters arrived in the morning to cast their ballots. Many said they were glad to be fulfilling their civic right and duty but that the election held little excitement or much prospect of change.

"The feeling is that what was is what will be," said Yossi, 37, an engineer who said he had voted for the leftist Meretz Party, and who asked to withhold his family name for reasons of privacy.

Noting the lack of enthusiasm Zelig Segal, 79, an artist and another Meretz supporter from the neighborhood, which straddles the predominantly Jewish western side of the city and the contested, Israeli-annexed eastern side where the Palestinian leadership wants to establish the capital of an independent state, said it was still important to vote.

"We live here, not in Switzerland," Mr. Segal said. "We are not here alone."

Polls in recent weeks have consistently predicted a victory for Mr. Netanyahu's ticket, a combination of his conservative Likud Party and the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu. But the polls have also shown the joint ticket declining in strength, from the 42 seats it holds in the current Parliament to perhaps 32 or 35, and losing support to the Jewish Home, a party further to the right that has been revitalized and energized under the leadership of Naftali Bennett, a charismatic first-time candidate.

Hours before the ballots opened, some longtime Likud supporters expressed their frustration with the outgoing Netanyahu government, saying it had not offered a clear path forward for Israel. One said he would still be voting Likud in the same way that he remained loyal to his soccer team. Another said he would not support Likud this time but was still undecided about who to vote for instead.

The parties of the divided center and left failed to forge a united bloc that might have presented a realistic challenge to the current leadership. The Labor Party, projected to win fewer than 20 seats, has said that if it does not win enough support to lead the new government, it will sit in the opposition.

As usual in Israel, where more than 30 parties were competing in a system based on nationwide proportional representation, no single party was expected to win enough seats for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. If the polls were anywhere close to accurate, a weakened Mr. Netanyahu was likely to face the choice of forming a narrow rightist and religious coalition or a broader one including one or more centrist parties – an option that could subject the prime minister to pressures from either side and lead to instability or paralysis.

"The sense is that there may be another election a year and a half from now," said another Abu Tor voter, Ruthi Ginsburg, 78.

Critical issues on Israel's agenda, such as the peace process with the Palestinians and the question of how to deal with Iran's nuclear program, figured superficially, if at all, in an election campaign that focused mostly on domestic issues, with parties on both the left and right pledging to bring down housing prices, a primary demand of the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who joined the social justice street protests in 2011.

"The campaign did not require people to choose between alternative ideas on important issues. It was all about images and personalities," said Dan Caspi, a professor from the department of communications at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. This election, Mr. Caspi said, would leave "everything open," with the policies of the future government dependent on how the coalition shapes up.

Many Israelis said that the liveliest campaign was run by the Central Elections Committee which led a drive to get apathetic and wavering citizens out to vote, and warning that anybody who did not vote should not be allowed to complain for the next four years.

Though elections are meant to take place every four years, unstable coalitions resulted in five general elections between 1992 and 2009, plus an additional direct ballot for the post of prime minister. Experts said that voter fatigue partly explained the steady drop in participation over the years, from nearly 80 percent in 1990s to less than 65 percent in 2009.

The president of Israel, Shimon Peres, urged citizens to exercise their right to vote.

"Today the state is asking citizens to vote for a free, beautiful, democratic country," Mr. Peres said, after casting his own ballot on Tuesday, a public holiday. "You can hesitate over who to vote for, but don't hesitate to vote."

Nahum Barnea, one of the country's most prominent political columnists, wrote in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Tuesday, "One of the reasons for the despondent atmosphere is anxiety about the future. Young people are anxious because of the high price of apartments and the loss of job security; adults are anxious about Israel's isolation in the world and an economic crisis that might wipe out their savings. Everyone is anxious about war."

The pre-election campaigns "failed to provide a calming answer to any of those anxieties," he added. "At the end of the day, when the results are in, there will still be no answer. The sense will be that the story is over. In fact, it will only be beginning."