BAGHDAD, Nov 17: At least 24 people, many of them women and children, were killed and scores wounded in attacks across Iraq on Wednesday amid reports that more than 60 Iraqi policemen have been kidnapped.

Fifteen people were killed and 26 wounded in a bomb explosion and clashes in the town of Baiji, north of Baghdad, police said. "Among the dead were six women and six children," said Lt Mezher Khalaf.

Nine Iraqis were killed in clashes between guerillas and US troops in Ramadi, which has been wracked by unrest since last week's US-led assault on nearby Fallujah.

The policemen were seized on Sunday as they returned from training in Jordan, one of only two men who managed to escape the ambush said on Wednesday. They were staying in a hotel near the Jordanian border in western Iraq when they were attacked by a group of 20 armed men, said the policeman from the southern town of Karbala.

"We were around 65 policemen returning from training in Jordan when around 20 masked gunmen entered our hotel Sunday morning in Trebil," he said. "They hooded all the policemen, tied their hands and took them away," Leith Naama al Kaabi said. Iraq's security forces are the target of almost daily attacks by militants.

On Oct 16, nine policemen from the Karbala region were killed, also on their way back from a training session in Jordan, when their convoy was ambushed in the so-called "death triangle" south of Baghdad.

Barely a week later, 49 army recruits and three civilian drivers were shot dead execution-style north-east of Baghdad. Then, earlier this month, guerillas ambushed the main police station in Haditha and another smaller station in the nearby village of Haqlaniya, executing 21 police officials.

US VERSION: The US military was unavailable for immediate comment on the killings in Ramadi, but an official had said earlier minor gunfights had erupted with guerrillas over the past few days. -AFP