BAGHDAD, Feb 11: More than 20 people were killed in attacks on Shia targets on Friday in violence apparently aimed at stoking sectarian hatred days before the climax of one of the holiest events in the Shia calendar.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on an unannounced visit to Iraq, warned it would take time for Iraqi security forces to crush the country's bloody insurgency.

Iraq's 60 per cent Shia majority, oppressed for decades under Saddam Hussein, is expected to dominate Iraqi politics after last month's historic polls. Insurgents, most of whom are Sunnis, have mounted repeated attacks on Shias.

Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking American to visit since the election, landed before dawn in Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad. He told US soldiers the poll had been a good day for Iraq "but there are still challenges ahead".

Police said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded in Balad Ruz, north east of Baghdad, when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a mosque. Four of the dead were soldiers and at least three wounded were children.

"I wish to lose my sight so that I won't see another person after you, my dear," cried one mourning woman in hospital. The worshippers had been leaving a ceremony for Ashura.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack, but said its target, an Internet statement said. "A lion from the martyrs' brigades of Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq attacked a unit of the pagan guards as it was patrolling the city of Balad Ruz," the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement posted on an Islamist Website.

Iraq plans to seal its borders next week to prevent pilgrims from flooding the country for the Ashura ceremony's climax. Last year suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing 171.

In Baghdad, gunmen burst into a Shia bakery, opening fire on workers and killing at least nine. The white walls, plastered with posters of Shia religious scholars, were left smeared with blood.

"I was just leaving my house which faces the bakery when I saw them shooting. They were masked and shouting Allahu Akbar... as they were shooting," witness Atheer Abdul Amir told Reuters.

Millions of Iraqis defied suicide bombs and mortar attacks to vote in the Jan. 30 election. But partial results show a low turnout in Sunni areas. A religious coalition blessed by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most revered Shia shcolar, has a commanding lead, with around half the 4.6 million votes counted so far. A coalition of Kurdish parties is in second place and a bloc led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is third.

Iraq's Electoral Commission is making final checks on some 300 ballot boxes selected at random for extra scrutiny and hopes to deliver a final count in the next few days.

Attacks slowed after the ballot, but suicide bombings this week in Baghdad, Baquba and Mosul have killed almost 50 police, soldiers and Iraqis hoping to join the security forces. On Friday, the bodies of four men believed to be police were found in Haswa, south of Baghdad.

One policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baquba, 65 km north of Baghdad. On Thursday, insurgents fought a pitched battle with police in the town of Salman Pak, south east of Baghdad. Police said 10 policemen and 20 insurgents were killed. At least 65 policemen were wounded.

US helicopters were sent in, and television footage showed burning police vehicles and scattered bodies. Police said those captured included three Iranians and two Saudi Arabians.

Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility in an Internet statement for Wednesday's kidnap of senior Interior Ministry official Colonel Riyadh Katei Aliwi. The group is behind some of the bloodiest attacks on Shias, Iraqi forces and US troops.

America has 150,000 servicemen and women in Iraq and says that rebuilding the Iraqi army and police force is the fastest way to bring them home. Rumsfeld's trip was to see if progress has improved after earlier efforts failed to deliver. Rumsfeld met Allawi and told reporters later "I was pleased with what I've been able to see."-Reuters