BAGHDAD - AT LEAST 15 people were killed and dozens wounded when a suicide bomber and a car bomb exploded in quick succession outside Iraq's police academy in the heart of Baghdad on Monday, officials said.

Another three people were killed in a roadside bombing in the Iraqi capital targeting a senior defence ministry general working on the government's national reconciliation project who was wounded on the attack.

The renewed bloodshed in Baghdad came as official government figures showed that deadly violence across the country had risen in November, with 340 Iraqis killed during the month.

In the bloodiest attack on Monday, 15 people were killed and 45 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance to the police academy on Palestine street, shortly before a parked car exploded.

The victims included both civilians and young police recruits, an interior ministry official said.

The blasts occurred between the academy and the Iraqi water resources ministry on a stretch of road that had been reopened only two months ago after being closed for two years following a suicide attack.

In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb attack seriously wounded a defence ministry official near his home and killed his driver and two passers-by, a ministry official said.

'General Mazher al-Mawlah, a defence ministry advisor, was hit by an explosive device when he left his house this morning in the area of Al-Sleikh in north Baghdad,' the official told AFP.

'His driver and two passers-by were killed, while 10 other people, including two of his bodyguards, were wounded in the attack.' Ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said the bomb attack 'directly targeted' Mawlah.

'Mawlah is in charge of issues related to Iraqi former officers, and works on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's national reconciliation project,' Askari said.

Mr Maliki has called on members of former dictator Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party to rejoin the political process and former members of his armed forces to abandon the insurgency and join Iraq's new security forces.

The government says it has now brought hundreds of former Baathists back into public life, while parliament has approved a law rehabilitating even quite senior former members of the party.

Figures released on Monday by the ministries of interior, health and defence said that 340 people were killed in November - up from 317 the previous month.

The November toll was 297 civilians, 29 police officers and 14 soldiers killed and 728 Iraqis wounded - 600 civilians, 100 police and 28 soldiers - Most of those killed were found in communal graves across the country, the defence ministry said.

Sixty insurgents were also killed, and another 875 were reported arrested.

In October 278 civilians, 21 police and 18 soldiers were killed.

US military losses also saw a slight rise last month, with 17 troops killed compared with 13 in October and 25 in September, according to the independent website www.icasualties.org.

Since the March 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam, 4,207 members of the American military have been killed in Iraq, according to an AFP toll compiled from icasualties.org. -- AFP