Insurgents detonated a suicide truck bomb outside Australia's Embassy in Baghdad Wednesday and hit Iraqi security targets with at least three car bombs, killing 26 less than two weeks before January 30 elections.

The deadliest attack was a blast near a police headquarters and hospital in eastern Baghdad.

A group led by al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it had carried out suicide bomb attacks on the Australian embassy and two police stations in Baghdad, according to Internet statements.

The statements from al-Qaida Organization for Holy War in Iraq said members of the group's "martyrdom squadrons."

The US military said in a statement the bomb killed 18 people, including five Iraqi police, and wounded 21.

Half an hour earlier, a suicide truck bomb rammed into the security barriers outside the Australian embassy, witnesses said. Two Iraqis were killed and two Australian soldiers were among several people wounded, officials said.

A third vehicle bomb killed two Iraqi security guards near Baghdad's international airport, and a fourth killed two civilians and two Iraqi soldiers at a military complex in Baghdad, the US military said.

A police source said another bomb also exploded at a Baghdad bank, targeting police as they collected their salaries. Witnesses said at least one person was killed.

Australian ambassador Howard Brown said the truck bomb that exploded near his embassy was close to accommodation for diplomatic security personnel.

"It was a car bomb aimed at the building where the security people are based. It was quite a substantial explosion," he said.

Insurgents have repeatedly targeted Iraqi soldiers and police in the run-up to the elections with suicide bombings and ambushes. Iraqi forces are due to provide protection at polling stations on election day.

On Tuesday, Iraq's US-backed interim government announced a range of unprecedented measures to try to prevent bloodshed during the ballot, with land borders to be closed for three days and vehicles barred from getting close to polling stations.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the United States say the elections must go ahead, despite calls from many Sunni Arab politicians for a delay to try to win wider Sunni support for the ballot to choose a national assembly.

Iraq's 60 percent Shi'ite majority is eager for the election to take place as they are likely to emerge in a dominant position after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein.

But many Sunni Arabs, who made up the backbone of the ruling class under Saddam, say an insurgency raging in Iraq's Sunni heartland will make it impossible to hold meaningful polls in some areas. Several Sunni parties have said they will boycott the elections unless they are delayed.

(China Daily January 20, 2005)