Bombers have killed at least 27 people in attacks in two Iraqi cities in the worst bloodshed since the country's election on 30 January.

Some 15 Iraqis were killed and 17 wounded on Monday when a 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 some distance from it.

Husain al-Mujamai, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera that the targeted building was under tight security.

"However, the driver of the booby-trapped car managed to reach the volunteers near one of the building's gates," he said.

Volunteers targeted

All the casualties were probably volunteers as civilians have no access to that area, according to al-Mujamai.

"We have heard that a large number of policemen have quit their jobs during the last few months fearing for their lives," he said.

However, unemployment and the difficult living situation is forcing people to join the police as there are no other jobs, al-Mujamai added.

As for the second attack, it occurred in the northern city of Mosul. Twelve people were killed and six wounded when a bomber targeted a crowd of police officers in a hospital compound.

A large crater was blown into the road and at least five cars were destroyed. Most, if not all, of the victims were thought to be police officers.

Tricked to death

Jasim Hasan, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera in Mosul that  Hasan Tahsin al-Ubaidi, director of Mosul's al-Jumhuri hospital, issued a statement on Monday saying that a man arrived at the hospital and asked all policemen to gather in order to chalk out a plan to capture him.

He then blew himself up among the men as they gathered, killing 12 of them and injuring six others. 

"The bomber's identity is unknown yet," Hasan said. 

Iraqi police sources said a mortar shell was fired at a group of  policemen at the hospital. 

But according to Hasan, most reports said a bomber blew himself up among the policemen. 

He quoted Al-Ubaidi, the hospital director, as saying that there were no casualties among civilians and patients as the explosion took place in the backyard of the hospital, where only policemen were present.

More attacks

In another incident, Ninawa police directorate in central Mosul city came under mortar attack on Monday morning, police sources told Hasan. 

Around 13 mortar shells landed in the outside yard of the police directorate, killing three civilians, the sources added.

For its part, the Islamist 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 captive appealing to other translators not to deal with US forces before he was blindfolded and shot in the head.

Separately, the US military said its troops killed one fighter and wounded another, possibly fatally, on Sunday in response to two attacks on US troops in Baghdad's Sadr City. 

On the same day, a US soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.

Aljazeera's statement

As of Monday, there was no word on the fate of four Egyptian engineers who were seized in Baghdad on Sunday as they left their home to work on an Iraqi mobile phone project.

An Italian journalist captured two days ago is still being held in custody. Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, was bundled into a car by armed men as she conducted interviews on a Baghdad street in broad daylight.

The group that claimed to have held 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," the statement, signed by the Jihad Organisation and posted on the internet, said. 

Meanwhile, Aljazeera has issued a statement calling on the captors to free Italian and French journalists Giuliana Sgrena and Florence Aubenas.

In its statement on Monday, Aljazeera stressed it support for the two journalists, as it believed that taking captive journalists performing their professional duties, is a clear violation of human rights.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi police secure the scene following an explosion some 50 meters from the Governor building following an explosion in the northeastern city of Baquba. (AFP)