Violence has resurged with dozens of people killed on Monday around the war-torn Iraq, after a short lull during the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

Early Monday, five policemen were killed in an insurgent attack on a police checkpoint northeast of Baghdad, police said. The early morning attack took place in Buhriz, some 60 km northeast of Baghdad, as insurgents used RPGs (Rocket-Propelled Grenades) and mortars to attack the police checkpoint.

About six insurgents were also killed in the exchange of fire with the police. Almost simultaneously, in the small village of Dhabab north of Baghdad, gunmen shot dead five Iraqi army soldiers in separate, but apparently coordinated attacks, the army said.

 Also on Monday, a series of bombs rocked Baghdad, killing at least four and wounding dozens others.

On Monday afternoon, three Iraqi civilians were killed and 26 others wounded in a busy market bombing in northern Baghdad. "A booby-trapped motor cycle left in the al-Naser popular market in the al-Shula district went off, killing three Iraqis and wounding 26 others," an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

Earlier this day, thirteen Iraqis were wounded in two separate car bomb attacks against Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.

"An explosive-laden car parking by the side of the Maghrib Street in central Baghdad hit a police patrol at about 10:40 AM (07:40 GMT), wounding five civilians and two policemen," a police source said.

Elsewhere in southern Baghdad, another car bomb struck a police commando convoy at about 10:45 AM (07:45 GMT) in the Karrada district, the source said.

The attack wounded five civilians and a police commando member, the source said, adding the blast also led to some damage to several shops and buildings nearby.

The two car bombings took place shortly after another two separate car bombs attacked Iraqi police patrols in Karrada in southern Baghdad and the al-Shareka Intersection in central Baghdad respectively.

One Iraqi civilian was killed and four other people, including two policemen, were wounded in these two earlier attacks.

On Sunday, Two US soldiers were killed, in separate roadside bomb attacks targeting US military convoys in Baghdad. According to US military statements released on Monday, a soldier assigned to Task Force Baghdad was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol in Baghdad on Sunday and another soldier from Task Force Baghdad died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad on the same day.

The latest deaths have brought to more than 2,165 the number of US military personnel who have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2005)