Suicide bombers kill 27 in two attacks in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Suicide bombers killed at least 27 people in attacks in two Iraqi cities on Monday in the worst bloodshed since the country's historic election eight days ago.

At least 15 civilians were killed and 17 wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded outside the main police headquarters in the town of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.

Police said the driver of the car tried to ram the police station but was blocked by a concrete barrier and detonated his explosives near civilians instead.

In the northern city of Mosul, 12 people died and four were wounded when a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of police officers in a hospital compound.

A large crater was blown in the road and at least five cars were destroyed. Most, if not all, the victims were thought to be police officers waiting to collect their salaries.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Mosul attack in a statement posted on a militant website.

"A lion in the martyrs' brigades of al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq attacked a gathering of apostates seeking to return to the apostate police force in Mosul near the hospital," the group said.

"The martyr was wearing an explosives belt and blew himself up after he entered the crowd," it added, vowing to carry out more attacks on "apostates and their masters".

Guerrillas trying to overthrow Iraq's US-backed government have mounted frequent attacks on Iraqi security forces, but failed in their bid to wreck the January 30 election despite sending several suicide bombers to polling centres.

Since then there have been dozens on attacks, but few as deadly as Monday's.

A separate mortar attack on the city hall building in Mosul killed one person and wounded three.

The US military said its troops killed one insurgent and wounded another, possibly fatally, on Saturday in response to two attacks on US troops in Baghdad's Sadr City slums.

There was still no word on the fate of four Egyptian engineers who were kidnapped in Baghdad on Sunday as they left their home to work on an Iraqi mobile phone project.

The abduction appeared to be part of an ongoing attempt by militants to disrupt the rebuilding of Iraq and came two days after the brazen kidnapping of an Italian journalist.

Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, was bundled into a car by gunmen as she conducted interviews on a Baghdad street in broad daylight.

An Islamist militant group that claims to have kidnapped her said on Monday it would "soon" decide her fate.

"We in the Jihad Organisation are still interrogating the prisoner and the legislative committee ... will issue a ruling in this regard soon," said the statement, signed by the Jihad Organisation and posted on the internet.

The group made no mention of a deadline it had set in an earlier statement which threatened to kill Sgrena by Monday if Italian troops did not leave Iraq.

In a separate internet statement, al Qaeda's group in Iraq denied it was involved in the kidnapping.

Italy has been an important ally of the United States in Iraq and has about 3000 troops in the country, based mostly in the southern city of Nassiriya.

More than a week after the historic election, the result remains unknown, though electoral officials were expected to release updated partial results later and hope to complete the process by Thursday.

The count so far puts a religious Shi'ite coalition in the lead by a long way with two-thirds of the vote, based on results from 35 per cent of polling centres.

Buoyed by its strong showing, the coalition is insisting it should get the prime minister's job in the new government. The post is currently held by Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite whose bloc is in second place with only 18 per cent of the vote.

As most of the votes counted so far have come from Shi'ite areas, results could change quickly -- particularly when results from the Kurdish-dominated north are tallied.

- REUTERS