Tuesday, December 27 2005 13:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Eighteen Iraqis, including eight policemen, were killed in insurgent attacks in and around Baghdad as a Shiite politician was gunned down and a provincial governor narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.

Some 30 rebels, armed with mortars and anti-tank weapons as well as small arms, took part in the deadliest assault, an attack on a police checkpoint in ethnically mixed Diyala province northeast of the capital, police said.

Five police were killed and another four wounded in the morning assault in the village of Buhruz, just outside the provincial capital of Baquba. Police said they killed six insurgents.

Gunmen later opened fire on the car of local councillor Suad Jaafari, a member of the main Shiite alliance, killing her and three bodyguards.

Insurgents also targeted Diyala governor Raed Rashid Mulla Jawad with a car bomb as he was leaving Baquba for his home village of Beni Tamim further north. The governor survived but one of his bodyguards was killed and two wounded.

Baquba has seen repeated insurgent attacks in recent weeks, including an assault on an army outpost that killed eight soldiers Friday.

In Baghdad, two police and two civilians were killed as four separate bombings targeted police patrols, the interior ministry said. A further 25 people were wounded.

Insurgents also detonated a booby-trapped motorcycle in a busy marketplace in the predominantly Shiite Shula neighborhood of north Baghdad, killing one and wounding 23.