BAGHDAD, Dec 18: At least 17 Iraqis were killed as violence flared on Sunday after Sunni Arab and Shiite politicians appealed for unity and warned against sectarian divisions following a landmark election. Eleven security force personnel were among those shot dead or blown up in a string of attacks in or north of the capital since late Saturday.

In Kirkuk, gunmen killed Dhiab Hamad al-Hamdani and his son Munah, the uncle and nephew of a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

And Ali Karim al-Assadi, a Shia member of the Badr Organisation, the former military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was shot dead in Baghdad, a security source said.

A woman was killed and 15 people wounded in a bombing outside a mosque in the capital, the first attack targeting the majority community since the election.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a suicide bomber in a minibus blew himself up wounding one policeman, while 11 police offiers were wounded in a shootout with insurgents in the west of the capital, security sources said.

After several days of relative calm amid a massive security clampdown that was lifted on Sunday, the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda has warned minority Sunni Arabs against being lulled into a false sense of security by the polls.

More than 15.5 million Iraqis were eligible to vote on Thursday to elect the first full-term parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

The fallen Sunni elite, who largely boycotted a vote for a transitional assembly in January, flocked to polls to elect a full-term parliament and boost their political representation over the next four years.

Leading Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi on Saturday called for a coalition to protect national unity in a new parliament and thanked insurgents for not attacking polling stations during the vote.—AFP