IRAQI insurgents launched a series of attacks on security forces near Saddam Hussein’s home town yesterday, killing more than 20 people after the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden again urged Muslims to wage a holy war against the US forces and their allies.

In one attack, heavily armed fighters took over a police station, killed the 13 policemen inside and then dynamited the building. At the same time, more gunmen attacked a police checkpoint just outside Saddam’s native town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, and killed three officers.

Another four policemen and a national guardsman were shot dead at a police station near Samarra, to the north. Three other guardsmen were killed by a car bomb aimed at a US army convoy and a policeman was shot dead in nearby Balad while guarding a voter registration centre.

At least five people were killed and twenty-two wounded, mostly National Guards, by a suicide bomber in Baqouba who detonated his car bomb as troops helped the injured survivors from an earlier bombing.

In Baghdad a National Guard general survived a suicide car bomb attack as he left for work. Six people were wounded.

The new tape released in the name of bin Laden came just hours after another tape apparently recorded by the al-Qaeda leader anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, as his “emir” in the country.

A British soldier has been found dead with a gunshot wound in Iraq, the Ministry of Defence said today. Sergeant Paul Connolly was discovered at Shaibah Logistic Base, southwest of Basra, on Sunday.

“His death is being investigated by the Royal Military Police, but initial inquiries do not indicate hostile action or other suspicious circumstances,” the MoD said. It added: “Sergeant Connolly, inevitably nicknamed ‘Billy’, served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, attached to 21 Engineer Regiment of the Royal Engineers. Aged 33, he came from Crawley in West Sussex, and was separated, with three children.”

• Iraqis in Britain will be able to vote in next month’s elections. Three polling stations will be set up in London, Manchester and Glasgow. About 60 per cent of the estimated 250,000 Iraqis in Britain are expected to take part.

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