BAGHDAD, January 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The new year did not bring any good news for the Iraqis with more people loosing their lives to the violence gripping the occupied Arab country.

At least twenty Iraqis, including eighteen national guardsmen, were killed on Sunday, January 2, and six others were wounded in a bombing attack near the capital Baghdad, reported Reuters.

This came a few hours after several others died in various parts across the war-torn country on the first day of the new year.

“We have 18 Iraqi National Guards, one Iraqi civilian and the driver of the vehicle dead,” said US military spokesman Master Sergeant Robert Powell.

A bomber rammed his vehicle into a bus carrying Iraqi national guardsmen outside a US military base in Balad, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

“We don't know if the vehicle with the bomb was stationary or moving at the time,” Powell said.

The US military spokesman said the slain civilian was an Iraqi female passing by in front of the US military base at the time of the attack.

Members of Iraq's security forces have been a favorite target of attacks since last year's US-led invasion on Iraq, with some seeing them as collaborators with the US-led occupation forces.

The bombing attack came just hours after several people were killed in attacks in different parts of the country on Saturday, January 1.

Provincial council leader Nawfal Abdel Hussein was killed along his brother in an attack claimed by an armed group linked to Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in Baquba.

Another council member was also found dead in the city.

The group also posted what appeared to be video footage of the executions of five Iraqi national guardsmen in Ramadi, west of the capital.

In the capital, two decapitated bodies were found in the western Al-Khadra neighborhood.

One of the beheaded bodies was found to be working with the US-led forces, the Iraqi interior ministry said.

In central Baghdad, a Lebanese employee in a Kuwaiti contracting firm was killed and another injured in the fortified Green Zone area, which houses the interim Iraqi government and the US and British embassies.

Two Iraqi national guardsmen were killed in northern Baghdad and six others wounded in a mortar attack on their base in Isaki, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the city of Samarra, an Iraqi officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A US marine was killed Saturday and anther wounded in a roadside bombing targeting a US convoy in Baghdad, the American army confirmed.

Another US soldier was also killed in Al-Anbar province late on Friday.

The new deaths brought US losses for the second half of 2004 to 504, the biggest six-month toll since the March 2003 invasion.

The US losses since its invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq stand at 1,326, according to a Pentagon tally.

The unabated attacks on US-led occupation forces and Iraqi security come as preparations continue for the controversial general elections, scheduled for January 30.

Addressing the Iraqi people on the eve of the new year, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the country stands at a crossroads.

“The new year will be decisive in the history of our nation and its future,” said Allawi.

The Iraqi voters are to choose a 275-member assembly, which will be charged with writing a permanent constitution.

If adopted in a referendum next year, the constitution would form the legal basis for another general elections to be held by December, 2005.

Representatives of several Iraqi parties and leading political figures have been campaigning for a six-month delay of the vote over the increasing deteriorating security conditions.