BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi insurgents set off bombs and fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at military convoys, checkpoints, and police patrols in a spate of violence yesterday that killed 33 people and wounded dozens.

The terror group Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed.

As the attacks persisted, so did negotiations to form Iraq’s first democratically elected government. Iraqi Kurds said they were close to a deal with the Shiite clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance to secure many of their territorial demands and ensure the country’s secular character after its National Assembly convenes March 16.

The dominant Shiite Muslim alliance, however, said although it agreed that Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani would become Iraq’s president, it was still talking about other conditions set by the Kurds for their support in the 275-member legislative body.

The Shiite alliance controls 140 seats and needs the 75 seats won by the Kurds in the January 30 elections to muster the necessary two-thirds majority to elect a president and later seat their choice for prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

An alliance official said interim Prime Minister Allawi, whose party won 40 seats, refused an offer for a Cabinet post. Mr. Allawi’s office could not be reached for comment.

“Iraqis defied the terrorists and they went to the polling stations in order to see their elected representatives meet and debate the future of the country,” said Barham Saleh, the interim deputy prime minister, a Kurd, of the decision to convene the assembly.

The wave of violence came as Dutch troops ended their mission in the southern city of Samawa and turned command of the area over to the British, along with responsibility for 550 Japanese soldiers. The Dutch government last year decided to pull out its final 350 troops, despite requests from Britain and America.

Another ally, Bulgaria, demanded yesterday that America investigate what appeared to be a friendly fire incident Friday that killed one of the 460 Bulgarian soldiers in Iraq. Although Bulgaria’s defense minister said the death would not lead to a withdrawal, his government must decide this month whether to keep troops in Iraq past July.

Al Qaeda in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility in an Internet statement for much of the bloodshed that killed 15 people yesterday in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. The assaults included a car bomb, three roadside bombs, and small arms attacks on three checkpoints, one of them just south of Baqouba in Muradiyah, said police Colonel Mudhafar al-Jubbori.

A car bomb also killed 12 people in Balad, southeast of Baqouba.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police officers and wounded a third, while two civilians were killed when a roadside bomb targeting a joint American-Iraqi military convoy exploded in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriyah.

In Baghdad’s Doura district, gunmen killed Mahmood Khudier, a former Iraqi army officer, while a man was killed in a mortar attack in Qaim, near the Syrian border, hospital and police officials said.

In the latest in a wave of kidnap pings, a Jordanian businessman abducted in Iraq was freed yesterday after his family paid a $100,000 ransom, his brother said. Ibrahim Al-Maharmeh, a food importer, was kidnapped in Baghdad on Saturday.

About 200 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq over the past year. At least 13 remain in the hands of their captors and more than 30 were killed. The rest were freed, some through the payment of ransom, or escaped.

Also yesterday, Italy paid homage to an intelligence officer killed by American fire in Iraq while escorting a hostage to freedom, with a state funeral in a Rome basilica drawing as many as 20,000 mourners – some bringing flowers, some waving flags – and all of the country’s top officials.

The killing of Nicola Calipari, 50, fueled anti-American sentiment in a country that was strongly opposed to war in Iraq, and prompted Prime Minister Berlusconi, a staunch supporter of the American-led military campaign, to demand that Washington provide a full explanation of the shooting in Baghdad.

“A grateful and admiring Italy bows to its hero, the victim of a war without a name,” said the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which opposed the Iraq war. “His gesture has moved the whole country.”

The Santa Maria degli Angeli basilica – originally designed by Michelangelo on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian – and the surrounding piazza were packed with mourners. Mr. Berlusconi and American Ambassador Mel Sembler were among dignitaries at the service.

An honor guard slowly carried the casket draped with the tricolor Italian flag into the church. In the front row, Calipari’s relatives – his wife Rosa and his children Silvia, 19, and Filippo, 14 – gripped each other’s hands and dabbed away tears. Several buried their faces in their hands.

Applause broke out when the casket arrived and when it was carried out of the church after the 90-minute funeral, which was broadcast live on several Italian television channels as well as on the Vatican’s CTV, which usually limits coverage to Vatican ceremonies.

Before the funeral, Calipari’s body lay in state at Rome’s Vittoriano monument, where police estimated 100,000 people streamed past his coffin. The body had been returned from Iraq on Saturday night.