BAGHDAD, March 23: At least 56 Iraqis died on Thursday in violence, including a car bombing, in the capital that marked the third major attack on a police lockup in three days.

A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdad’s central Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen employed there, authorities said.

The Interior Ministry is a predominantly Shiite organization and heavily infiltrated by members of various Shiite militias. The unit targeted on Thursday investigates large-scale crimes and had about 20 suspected insurgents in custody, police Lt Col Falahal-Mohammadawi said.

Al-Mohammadawi ruled out that the assault was aimed at releasing the prisoners — the goal of previous days’ attacks on other police facilities.

Insurgents laid siege to a prison south of Baghdad on Wednesday, emboldened by a successful jailbreak a day earlier in which more than 30 prisoners were released north of the capital. But US troops thwarted the second pre-dawn attack, overwhelming the gunmen and capturing 50 of them, police said.

In yet another attempt to free prisoners, gunmen on Thursday attacked Iraqi soldiers escorting detainees to a courthouse in northern Baghdad’s Azamiyah district. A prisoner was killed in the crossfire before authorities arrested eight of the gunmen, al-Mohammadawi said.

In the assault on the crime unit, more than 35 people, mainly employees, were wounded, police said.

A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in the mostly mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said.

Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others — two policemen and two bystanders — in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah, 50 km south of Baghdad. Police said dozens were wounded.

Another two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.

Elsewhere throughout the capital, two police were killed in gun-battles with insurgents, and two civilians — a private contractor and power plant employee — were gunned down in drive-by shootings.

Fourteen more bodies were found in the continuing string of shadowy sectarian killings: six in the capital and eight brought in by US forces to a hospital in Fallujah, 65 km west of Baghdad, police said.

Another suicide bomber struck a police patrol, detonating his car in the region of Haditha, 220 km northwest of Baghdad. Eight policemen were seriously injured in the attack, police said.—AP