BAGHDAD, Feb 13: At least 17 people were killed on a bloody day of bombings and attacks on Monday, including four Iraqi policemen gunned down on their way home from work in the northern oil refinery town of Baiji.

Six people were killed and 32 wounded in a bomb attack outside a bank in Baghdad al-Jadida, south of the capital.

A crowd was waiting in line outside the bank to exchange 13-dollar food vouchers for money when a bomb packed with ball bearings exploded, police said, after earlier reports of a suicide attack.

In northern Iraq, the four policemen killed had doffed their uniforms as a safety precaution and were headed to the city of Kirkuk in a civilian car when unknown gunmen waylaid them on the highway.

Another policeman was killed and one wounded in a separate attack, 80 kilometres south of Kirkuk, as a roadside bomb went off next to a police patrol.

In Baquba, four men, three of them brothers, were shot dead by gunmen in cars as they left home west of the city.

One of those killed was an official in the Shia political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.—AFP