Violence in Iraq resurged on Thursday, with at least 27 people killed in a spate of attacks across the country after US President George W. Bush vowed to continue to help train Iraqi security forces to fight insurgents.
A police convoy was ambushed on Thursday on a road near Baghdad. Two policemen were killed, 14 wounded and at least 16 others went missing in the attack.
At least a dozen Iraqi civilians were killed Thursday in violence in other parts of the country.
A day earlier, 12 Iraqi soldiers were killed by insurgents in an ambush near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, when they were going back from their duties guarding oil pipelines.
Two US marines were killed on Wednesday in the volatile al- Anbar province.
Such attacks suggest the country's insurgency is far from over, despite the rebels' failure to stop Iraq's Jan. 30 election, which was touted by Bush as opening "a new phase" in his annual State of the Union address.
"We will increasingly focus our efforts on helping prepare more capable Iraqi security forces -- forces with skilled officers, and an effective command structure," Bush said.
"As those forces become more self-reliant and take on greater security responsibilities, America and its coalition partners will increasingly be in a supporting role," he added.
Bush voiced confidence that the United States will achieve victory in Iraq "because the Iraqi people value their own liberty. "
With 1.6 million votes counted, the leading Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, garnered 72.8 percent, while a list headed by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi came in second, with about 18.4 percent in the partial count, the electoral commission said.
"All these things would be ended before the 15th of February," commission member Safwat Rashid said.
However, Bush disappointed many Iraqis by refusing to set a timetable for the withdrawal of the roughly 150,000 US forces from Iraq in his policy address at the beginning of his second four- year term.
"We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out," Bush said.
Many Iraqi groups demanded a quick withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq or at least a clear timetable for the pullout.
The Muslim Scholars Association, the most influential religious body among Iraq's Sunni Arabs, said "Iraqi blood will keep bleeding as long as there is a constant American interference in the Iraqi affairs."
Abdul Hadi Al Daragy, a spokesman for a group led by the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Thursday the presence of the US-led "occupation forces" would be the main obstacle to the start of any comprehensive national dialogue.
"The dialogue is an essential issue, but the problem remains in that the parties calling for the dialogue haven't made it a priority to demand a timetable for ending the occupation," he said.