The twin attacks north of the capital were the deadliest against Iraqi security forces since the landmark January 30 general elections, hailed by the Baghdad government and Washington as a blow to the insurgency.
In the 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.
The devastating attack was claimed in a statement posted on the Internet attributed to militants loyal to Iraq's most-wanted man, Islamic extremist Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi.
The bomber "entered a recruitment center where dozens had gathered... at the main entrance of the Republican hospital", it said.
A civilian was also killed and three wounded in a mortar attack in Mosul near the provincial council headquarters, 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 local hospital, without specifying if all the dead were police.
"A car drove toward us before exploding," Said Mahmoud Shaker, who was wounded in the attack, from his hospital bed.
The US military also announced that one of its troops was killed and two others wounded in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a previously unknown Islamist group that claimed the abduction of journalist Giuliana Sgrena said in an Internet statement that Rome, one of the closest US allies on Iraq, had 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 Organization for Jihad.
"We are still questioning the hostage and the Sharia [religious] committee will soon present its verdict," the group said in the statement whose authenticity could not be verified.
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 among the journalistic community.
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 hostages crisis further spiralled on Sunday when four Egyptian telecom engineers were abducted outside their Baghdad home.
They were working for Servco, a subsidiary of Egyptian telecom giant Orascom, which operates the mobile phone network in the Baghdad area.
"We have no information on the engineers and nobody has claimed their capture," an Orascom spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Sabah newspaper in Turkey reported that Turkish business magnate Kahraman Sadikoglu, kidnapped in December, would be released in the next two days, citing the hostage's family.
And the leader of an Iraqi Christian party who was kidnapped by armed men last month has contacted his family in Sweden by mobile telephone, Swedish media reported.
Minas Ibrahim Al Yussufi, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Iraq and who holds Swedish citizenship, was kidnapped on January 28 in Mosul, according to fellow party members.
Following the success of election day, officials had voiced hope that the crucial step in the country's political process would spur the insurgency into reconsidering its stance.
But even as violence flared anew on Monday, the vote count continued and more partial results were expected.
With 3.3 million votes counted out of an estimated 8 million cast, the main Shia coalition backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani is holding a commanding lead.
Most major Sunni parties called for a boycott of the vote and leading Sunni clerics on Saturday demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US-led foreign troops to join talks on a new constitution.
The Committee of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's leading Sunni religious authority, said that if a timetable was established it would urge insurgents to end the bloodshed.
But the Shia religious leadership also upped the ante on another sensitive issue on Sunday when a top cleric staked out a radical demand that the constitution must refer to Islam as the sole source of legislation.
A surprise statement released by Sheikh Ibrahim Ibrahimi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Ishaq Al Fayad, one of the five key marja, or Shia religious leaders, set out the demand.
"All of the ulema [clergy] and marja, and the majority of the Iraqi people, want the national assembly to make Islam the source of legislation in the permanent constitution and to reject any law that is contrary to Islam," it said.
The influence of Islam was a sticking point when an interim constitution was drawn up last year under the US-led occupation.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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