A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people and wounded nearly 30 outside an Iraqi security forces recruitment centre in Baghdad today in the deadliest single attack since last month's historic election.
Eight other people were killed in continuing violence, including a prominent politicians two sons.
Mtithal al-Alusi, the secretary-general of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation, smokes a cigarette near body bags containing the bodies of his two sons after surviving an assassination attempt in Baghdad.
The recruitment centre blast came a day after suicide bombers killed 27 people in attacks in two Iraqi cities. Between them, the three bombs have shattered the lull in violence that followed the poll.
The al Qaeda wing in Iraq , led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the latest attack, and yesterday's blasts in the cities of Mosul and Baquba.
"Here come the convoys of martyrs to strike the headquarters of infidels and apostates, and this is the beginning of the escalation we had promised," the group said in an Internet statement.
It described the victims as "apostate pagan guards who are agents of the Jews and crusaders".
Police said the today's attackers were targetting a truck carrying recruits into a police base in a disused airport. The US military said the bomber is believed to have been on foot.
It said 21 were killed and 27 wounded. Iraq 's interim government put the death toll at 22 or more, and said nearly 30 people were hurt. It said all of them were waiting in line to sign up for the police force.
"To attack and brutally murder patriotic and innocent Iraqis on their way to volunteer to protect their homeland is a crime against all people of Iraq ," said Mr Thair al-Naqib, spokesman for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
"We will fully investigate this incident and bring these perpetrators to justice."
Iraq
Alliance nations agreed last June to establish a mission to train 1,000 Iraqi officers a year, but NATO has yet to raise enough staff for formal training to begin.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, police said a bomb outside a popular restaurant killed one Iraqi, and gunmen ambushed the convoy of a politician, killing two of his sons.
The politician, Mr Mithal al-Alusi, who has been a vocal critic of Syria and Iran and was widely criticised in Iraq for visiting Israel last year, survived the attack.
Three Iraqi soldiers and two insurgents were killed in a firefight on a road south of Baghdad and in Samarra, north of the capital, an Iraqi civilian was killed and three relatives wounded when three mortar rounds hit their house.
Iraqi police claimed at least one success in their fight with insurgents, arresting a man they believe was involved in beheading people working with US-led forces in Mosul.
The government also said it captured a relative of Saddam Hussein last month. Mr Basher Mutar al-Tikriti is suspected of supporting and sheltering members of Saddam's regime, including Saddam's son Qusay, it said.
Meanwhile, preliminary figures in the counting of votes from the January 30th poll shows a Shia alliance still well in the lead, a Kurdish coalition second and a bloc led by Mr Allawi in third. The figures are in line with expectation.
's security forces have borne the brunt of attacks by insurgents as US military tries to build a force capable of defeating the militants. The US will lobby NATO allies at a meeting in France this week to provide more money for training and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said today he expected agreement on the issue at a NATO summit in Brussels on February 22nd.