At least 33 people were killed in Iraq in the past 24 hours as violence remains unabated in the war-torn country.

On Monday, 11 policemen were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bomb attack when they were waiting to collect their wages in Mosul.

In a statement posted on the Internet, militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack.

In another incident, eight people were killed as a car bomb exploded Monday outside the police headquarters in the town of Baquba, 60 km northeast of Baghdad.

Earlier on Sunday, at least 13 people were reported dead as Iraqi security forces clashed with rebels in areas north of Baghdad and the so-called triangle of death.

A US soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bomb attack north of Baghdad. Two other US soldiers were wounded in the incident.

According to the Turkish Sabah newspaper, a Turkish businessman Kahraman Sadikoglu, kidnapped in Iraq in December, 2004, will be released in the next two days.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi Swedish Minas Ibrahim al-Yousifi, 60, may have been kidnapped in Iraq since he was missing on the way from Mosul to Baghdad on Jan. 28. His family in the city of Joekoeping, Sweden, called the police last weekend.