BAGHDAD, 6 February 2005 — Violence surged in Iraq again yesterday with insurgents killing two US soldiers and 33 Iraqis. The insurgents posted a grim video of the execution of seven abducted National Guards on the Internet.

The video posted by the Army of Ansar Al-Sunnah showed the men being interrogated and then shot as they kneeled outdoors with their eyes covered.

They had been abducted in an ambush near Baghdad late on Thursday. Shortly after the ambush, police said two policemen had been killed, 14 wounded and 16 were missing.

Another videotape posted on a website, this one from the Islamic Army in Iraq, said it had killed three policemen captured after the same raid. It showed three hostages, one of them in tears, and police identification cards. It did not show the killings. The two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing Friday night near the town of Beiji, about 250 km north of Baghdad, the US military said.

Early yesterday a roadside bomb killed four Iraqi National Guards in Basra while gunmen stormed a police station in the northern city of Mosul, killing five officers.

While attacks by insurgents against foreign and Iraqi security forces have slowed since last Sunday’s election, they have not ceased during a week when electoral officials have been busy counting ballots.

Officials of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance that has rolled up a big lead in the elections said it wants the prime minister post in the upcoming government — casting doubt on chances that US-backed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi can keep his job. Allawi’s ticket is running a distant second.

The Iraqi election commission released no new election returns yesterday in contests for the 275-seat National Assembly, but predicted it would announce final vote totals by Thursday.

However, partial returns from about 35 percent of the 5,200 polling centers showed the Shiite-led ticket, endorsed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, with about two-thirds of the votes to 18 percent for Allawi.

Most of those returns were from Shiite provinces where the Alliance, whose leaders have links to Iran, had been expected to run strong. No returns have been announced from heavily Sunni provinces.

But many Sunnis apparently stayed at home on election day, heeding boycott calls by hard-line clerics or fearing insurgent attacks. That has raised fears that the Sunni minority, estimated at 20 percent of the population, may not accept a new Shiite-dominated government, fueling the Sunni-led insurgency.

In a bid to avoid political marginalization, a group of Sunni Arab parties that refused to participate in the election said yesterday they want to take part in the drafting of a permanent constitution — a chief task of the new National Assembly.

— With input from agencies