Suicide bombs kill 27 in Iraq

Suicide bombers killed 27 people in attacks in two Iraqi cities yesterday in the worst violence since the country's historic election eight days ago.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for both blasts and vowed further attacks on "apostates and their masters", an apparent reference to US-led forces and the Iraqis who work with them.

As the counting of votes continued following the January 30 polls, a Kurdish coalition moved into second place, pushing a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi into third. A Shi'ite alliance is still well in the lead.

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 bomber tried to ram his car into 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 were killed and four wounded when the other suicide bomber blew himself up among 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.

"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," al Qaeda's Iraqi unit said in a statement posted on a militant website.

"The martyr was wearing an explosives belt and blew himself up after he entered the crowd."

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

And the Islamist militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it shot dead an Iraqi translator working for US forces and posted a video of the killing on the Internet. The video showed the hostage appealing to other translators not to deal with US forces before he was blindfolded and shot in the head.

There was still no word on the fate of four Egyptian telecoms engineers kidnapped in Baghdad on Sunday and an Italian journalist abducted in the capital last week.