"Around 8:45, a man driving an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into the checkpoint guarding the entrance of the street and blew himself up," a policeman told AFP.

"We have received two dead and 10 wounded, seven of them policemen and the other three civilians," a medical source at Yarmuk hospital told AFP, adding that he could not immediately identify the dead nor specify whether the bomber was among them.

On Sunday, al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed in a purported statement that his movement had kidnapped and killed a candidate on Allawi's list for the January 30 general elections.

An INA official confirmed that Salem Jaafar al-Kanani had been abducted last Wednesday.

Zarqawi has issued several statements over the past few days vowing to wreck the landmark polls.

Earlier 10 Iraqis, including a mother and her child, were killed Sunday in attacks north of Baghdad, while insurgents dynamited a voting center, a government building and a police station around the country.

Six Iraqis, including a mother and her child, were killed Sunday in Samarra bombings, north of Baghdad, while Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed the dynamiting of a police station.

In the latest bloodshed, three teachers from a technical oil college died in a roadside bombing north of the oil refinery town of Baiji, police said.

A married couple and their daughter were hit by a bomb blast that targeted an Iraqi military convoy near Baiji, police added. The mother and daughter were killed. The husband was seriously wounded.

One insurgent and three Iraqi soldiers were also killed in a firefight in Baiji, police said.

Major General John Batiste, the commanding US general in Salaheddin province, which is considered a potential trouble zone on election day, has identified Baiji as one of his greater challenges.

South of Baghdad, insurgents dynamited a polling station near Hilla in the predominantly Shia province of Babil, police said.

Attackers blew up a school used as a voting center in the town of Albu Alwan, said policeman Moahmmed al-Ghanem.

Sixteen Iraqis, including two children, were killed on Sunday when a fire swept through a hospital in the southern town of Nasiriyah, causing panicked patients to jump out of windows.

"Sixteen people were killed and others wounded in the fire which broke out at 1:00 am (2200 GMT) and which was due to a short circuit," said local police chief Mohammed Muheibel.

Supporters of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, executed an Egyptian driver on an Iraqi street in broad daylight, according to a video shown on a website Monday.