MOSUL, Iraq, Feb 7 (AFP) - Insurgents unleashed suicide bombers against Iraq's embattled police Monday, killing at least 23, as the majority Shiite alliance headed for a major victory in Iraq's historic election.
An Islamist group said meanwhile that it would soon decide on the fate of a kidnapped female Italian reporter.
Two suicide attacks in Mosul and Baquba were the deadliest against Iraqi security forces since the landmark January 30 election, hailed by the Baghdad government and Washington as a blow to the insurgency.
Both attacks were claimed in Internet statements by militants loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In the main northern city of Mosul, 12 policemen were killed and six others wounded when a suicide bomber lured them into a trap as they were waiting to collect their wages.
"The bomber was wearing a long coat. He called the young men over to him to gather around and he set off the bomb," said police colonel Saad Aziz.
A civilian was also killed and three wounded in a mortar attack in the same city, medical sources said.
A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the main police headquarters for Diyala province in Baquba, killing 11 and wounding 16, said a doctor at the city's hospital, without specifying if all the dead were police.
"A car drove towards us before exploding," Mahmud Shaker, who was wounded in the attack, said from his hospital bed.
A few hours later, seven mortar rounds rained down on houses near the police headquarters, killing an eight-year-old child and wounding an adult.
The US military announced that one soldier was killed and two others wounded in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad on Sunday. A pipeline carrying crude oil from northern Iraq to the key refinery of Baiji was hit by an insurgent rocket.
As violence flared anew, partial election results showed the United Iraqi Alliance, backed by Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, set to get more than half of the seats in the new 275-member national assembly.
Iraq's main Kurdish coalition took second place in the vote count, winning just over one million votes from Dohuk and Suleimaniyah -- two of the three provinces in the Kurdish autonomous region.
The Shiite alliance has 2,244,237 votes out of about 4.36 million votes counted, the election commission said.
Though its share has fallen to about 51 percent of the vote, it should still get an absolute majority in the assembly as many of the votes still to be counted are from Shiite strongholds in the south.
The UIA was even a surprise leader in the mainly Sunni Arab province of Salaheddin, north of Baghdad, where figures after votes were counted from 80 percent of the province's polling stations hinted at a very low turnout.
Sunni Arab militant groups had threatened bloody retaliation against anyone who participated in the electoral process.
Meanwhile, a previously unknown Islamist group that claimed the abduction of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, gave Italy until Monday night to announce a troop withdrawal.
"We will announce the fate of (Sgrena) in the imminent future," said the group, calling itself the Organisation for Jihad, in an Internet statement. It gave no proof it is holding the journalist.
Sgrena, 56, was snatched outside a Baghdad mosque around which refugees from Fallujah have been encamped since a massive US-led onslaught on their city in November.
The area is known to be dangerous.
Florence Aubenas, a female reporter for the French daily Liberation, was nabbed and another Western journalist narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt as they worked on a similar story.
Iraq's foreign hostage crisis further spiralled Sunday when four Egyptian telecom engineers were abducted outside their Baghdad home.
Following the success of the election, officials had voiced hope that the crucial step foward in the political process would spur the insurgents to reconsider their position.
Most major Sunni parties called for a boycott of the vote and leading Sunni clerics on Saturday demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as their price for joining talks on a new constitution.
The Committee of Muslim Scholars said that if a timetable was established it would urge insurgents to end the bloodshed.

02/07/2005 16:38 GMT - AFP