Just hour later US President George W Bush signalled his impatience with Iraq's protracted efforts to form a unity government, telling leaders there "it's time" to reach an agreement.
Mr Bush also assured a friendly audience that US soldiers facing bloody attacks there daily were not dying for a lost cause.
The latest insurgent assault happened in the town of Madaen, 20 kilometres south of Baghdad where at least seven members of the security forces were killed and six wounded in the raid.
It began with a mortar attack and followed by a direct assault by "a large group of men" on the police station and nearby commando headquarters.
The raid followed a similar attack on Wednesday when more than 100 rebels stormed a police station in Muqdadiya, north-east of the capital, killing 18 police and releasing 32 prisoners held in the cells.
That attack was claimed by the Consultative Council of Mujahedeen, an umbrella grouping led by the al-Qaeda terror group.
Commander killed
There was no immediate word as to who was behind the latest attack which started with the 14-mortar salvo on Madaen city hall.
A battalion of the Al-Salam public order brigade was stationed in the hall and the battalion's commander and three commandos were killed.
Fighting also left three policemen dead and five wounded in the west of the capital after battles with gunmen who twice ambushed groups of Shi'ite pilgrims returning from a religious holiday. Two pilgrims were killed and 42 wounded.
In Baghdad itself police found the bodies of 13 men, also thought to be pilgrims, who had been shot to death and dumped in a western area of the Iraqi capital.
The attacks were likely to infuriate the majority Shiite community which has been repeatedly targeted by Sunni extremists bent on sparking a sectarian war.
Bush suggests blogs
Speaking to an audience of US servicemen at a base in Wheeling, West Virginia, Mr Bush said: "The people have spoken and now it's time for a government to get stood up," he said, "time for the elected representatives, or those who represent the voters, the political parties, to come together and form a unitygovernment."
Mr Bush's comments came on the fifth straight day of a public campaign to shore up support for the unpopular war.
The US president said he had discussed the issue by video conference with the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and General George Casey, commander of US military forces in Iraq.
"We talked about the need to make it clear to the Iraqis it's time to get a government in place that can start leading this nation and listening to the will of the people," he said.
Mr Bush, who frequently blames the US media for the sour mood about the war, suggested that supporters of the US deployment could bypass traditional reporters entirely to get the good news from Iraq to the public.
He suggested Internet-based Web logs, the wildly popular personal online diaries.
"Just got to keep talking. Word of mouth, there's 'blogs, there's Internet, there's all kinds of ways to communicate, which is literally changing the way people are getting their information," he said.
General under estimated
Meanwhile the US military's top commander says he under estimated the extent of the reluctance of the Iraqi people to accept a unified government.
General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that he thought citizens would more quickly embrace the idea of a central government.
"I think that I certainly did not understand the depth of fear that was generated by the decades of Saddam's rule," said General Pace.
"I think a lot of Iraqis have been in the wait and see mode longer than I thought they would."
General Pace said Iraqis need to do a better job recruiting more Sunni Arabs into the Army and police.
He said the US can help by providing computer systems and other aid to help the Iraqis be more efficient in the vetting process they use to weed out people who have acted against other sects.