国际英语新闻：Growing violence in Iraq ahead of polls as multiple attacks kill 22

BAGHDAD, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- At least 22 people were killed in a new string of attacks across Iraq on Monday, a sign of growing violence as the country gears up for next month's crucial parliamentary election amid a boycott call of a major Sunni party.

In the capital city of Baghdad, gunmen shot dead eight members of a family and cut the heads off some of the bodies early Monday in the Wahda area.

Baghdad security forces said they had captured the suspected murders, who confessed to the slaughter of the eight.

In another murder case, a mother and two of her daughters were shot dead by unknown militants inside their house in the Dabbash area in the Hurriyah district in northern Baghdad, according to the Interior Ministry.

Also on Monday, a policeman at a checkpoint near the Nassir Square in central Baghdad was shot dead. And a university professor was killed while driving on a main street in eastern Baghdad by gunmen in their car.

Two mortar rounds struck the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses government ministries and foreign embassies in central Baghdad on Monday. Five people were wounded and several civilian cars damaged.

Violence also struck two other Iraqi provinces on Monday, leaving nine dead.

In Mosul, capital of northern Nineveh province, gunmen shot dead four security members in two attacks on their checkpoints.

A car bomb exploded around midday Monday outside a police headquarters in western Anbar province. Five were killed and four others wounded in the attack.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said they expect an increase of violent attacks ahead of the national polls on March 7, which is seen as a pivotal test of the country's national reconciliation and political democracy. The country saw a peak of sectarian violence that left tens of thousands dead in 2006 and 2007 due to power imbalance and other reasons.

A ban on several hundred candidates over alleged links to Saddam Hussein's Baath party has sparked a row among different blocs.

In the latest development, Salah al-Mutlak, head of the National Dialogue Front, a major Sunni party, said over the weekend the party was boycotting the election. The prominent Sunni lawmaker has been banned from running in the election over his " glorifying" statements regarding the outlawed Baath party. His party, which has 11 seats in the current parliament, has been a key Sunni party in the cross-sectarian Iraqiya List coalition led by former Prime Minister Allawi, a secular Shiite.

Analysts fear Mutlak's call of boycott may sow the seeds of a new round of sectarian violence if the Sunnis feel marginalized again in the political arena.

To undermine the election, the "Islamic State of Iraq" terrorist group claimed it would use every means to prevent the election after the campaign began on Feb. 12.

Millions of Iraqis are expected to participate in casting votes. Some 6,100 candidates will compete for the 325 seats in the new national legislature.

Both U.S. and the international community has been urging a fair, transparent and credible election in Iraq, to pave the way for U.S. troops full withdrawal by the end of next year and the war and violence-torn country's reconstruction in all sectors.