BAGHDAD, Jan 17: Insurgents bent on sabotaging Iraq's Jan 30 elections unleashed mortars and bombs and opened fire in several cities on Monday, killing at least 22 policemen and soldiers and targeting polling stations.

Witnesses said burnt bodies were scattered in a police compound in Baiji after a car bomb killed at least 10 people in the oil refining town in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad. Near Baquba, gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint and killed eight soldiers, a National Guard officer said.

Polling stations came under fire in two other cities. A security guard was killed and guerrillas also engaged US troops protecting a school designated for voting. A statement from followers of Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they had carried out an attack in Baquba and issued a new warning to Iraqi security forces.

"A lion from the martyrs' battalion of Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq carried out a heroic attack against the headquarters of atheism and tyranny in Baquba today," said the statement posted on a Web site.

In Sharqat gunmen attacked a police station, killing one policeman and wounding two, a police official said. The bullet-ridden body of another policeman was found beside a road.

Gunmen also attacked a police station in Dour, a Sunni village near Saddam's hometown in Tikrit. One policeman was killed and two injured. Clashes erupted in the southern town of Musayib after guerrillas fired on a polling station. One guard was killed and two wounded. One insurgent was also wounded, police said. -Reuters