Bombings and shootings in central Iraq and Baghdad, including twin suicide truck bomb attacks on leading figures in the fight against al-Qaeda, killed at least 33 Iraqis yesterday, officials said.

At dawn two suicide bombers blew up fuel-laden trucks against the homes of an Iraqi police, chief anti a tribal leader in simultaneous bombings in Baiji city in central Salaheddin province, police said.

Hie attacks just minutes and about a kilometre (less than a mile) apart killed 19 people and wounded at least 50 people, police commander Ali al-Bijwari told AFP.

They were aimed at local police chief Colonel Saad al-Nifous and Thamer Ibrahim Atallah, a tribal leader at the forefront of the fight against al-Qaeda. Both escaped unharmed though members of their families were killed.

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The trucks were loaded with barrels of gasoline and caused massive fireballs when they exploded.

Violence also raged In Baghdad, where at least 12 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in four bomb blasts, including one which ripped through crowds in a central square, fraqiofiicialssaid.

InnorthemMosulcity.thedeputy commander of Nineveh police, Brigadier General Abdul Aal Thannoun Mubarak was killed when unidentified gunmen attacked his convoy,policesaid.

Another policeman was killed in a car bomb attack on a police patrol in Mosul, that also wounded two other officers.

The attacks come a day after a suicide bomber killed 14 people when he exploded his truck at a police post near another town in Salaheddin province, Samarra, midway between Baiji and Baghdad.

al-Qaeda in Iraq had warned it would ramp up attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, which ends - this week. It also warned it would target Iraqis who fold' US forces in fighting local membetsofOsama bin Laden's global Jihadi group.

Among the dead in Tuesday's twin suicide bomb attacks were four women and three children, police official Bijwarisaid. He was not able to say exactly how many were killed

and wounded ineach incident.

The first bomb exploded at the home of police chiefNifous, killing at least seven' people, including his uncleand two nephews.

Minutes later, a second suicide truck bomber crashed his explo-sives-packed tntek into the house of Atallah, who escaped the attack.The identities of those killed and wounded were not immediately clear.

Asmall mosque next to the house collapsed under the impact of the blast

Atallah is the third member of the Salaheddin Awakening Council, a coalition of tribes in theTikritdistrict formed to fight al-Qaeda, to come under attack in less than a week.

Last Thursday, a roadside bomb near Samarra killed the leader of die council, Sheikh Maawia Naji Jebara, and wounded his deputy Sheikh SabaliMutasharal-Shimmary.

Tlie attack on their convoy was claimed by an al-Qaeda group in a statement posted on the Internet

Leading Iraqi Sunni cleric Harith • al Dhari, meanwhile, urged Iraqis homo jbin USifdfces-ih Cgiiting al-Qaeda, arguing that by doing so they aresidingwiththeoccupier.

"We do not accept the acts of al-Qaeda," said Dhari, head of the influential Muslim Scholars' Association, Iraq's main Sunni clerics'organisation.