BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqis seeking jobs with security forces were targeted once again yesterday when a suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up in one of four attacks that killed 26 people.

The attacks are part of a surge of violence that has killed more than 200 since Prime Minister al-Jaafari announced his new government last week with seven positions still undecided.

Many recruitment centers have been turned into small fortresses surrounded by concrete blast walls and razor wire. But militants are striking back with an old weapon: the suicide bomber belt.

The Cabinet held its first meeting yesterday. An aide to Mr. al-Jaafari, Laith Kuba, said the seven vacancies, including the key oil and defense ministries, would be filled by Saturday, and parliament would be asked to vote on them Sunday.

In the deadliest attack, police said an insurgent blew himself up outside an army recruitment office a half mile from Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

At al-Yarmouk Hospital, the morgue was overflowing with bodies after the blast. One man lay screaming on his bed – both his legs had been blown off.

“While we were standing in line, a man walked … right up to the heavily guarded entrance gate, as if he wanted to ask the guards a question,” said Anwar Wasfi, whose leg and arms were injured. “Suddenly, an explosion occurred, and I was knocked over. I passed out and opened my eyes wounded in the hospital.”

At least 13 people were killed and 20 wounded in the blast, Lieutenant Salam Wahab said at the recruitment center.

A similar attack Wednesday in the northern city of Irbil killed 60 Iraqis and wounded 150.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman, said there has been an escalation in the use of suicide belts since security was stepped up around recruitment centers and other insurgent targets. Recent raids in and around Baghdad uncovered some assembled car bombs, he said, and foiled many attacks.

“But it is rather difficult to find out about an explosive belt put on by a person,” Colonel Rahman said.

On January 30, Iraqis voted in historic parliamentary elections, and private cars were banned from the streets; there were nine attacks that day by bombers who had explosives strapped to their bodies.

At least nine policemen were killed in two attacks in western Baghdad yesterday. In the first attack, gunmen fired on a patrol in the Amil area, killing eight policemen and wounding two, police Major Mousa Abdul Karim said. About 15 minutes later, a suicide car bomb exploded near a police patrol in nearby Ghazaliyah, killing one officer and wounding six, according to Major Karim and an American military spokeswoman, Sergeant 1st Class Danette Rodesky-Flores.

Another suicide car bomber attacked an American military convoy in Baghdad, destroying a large truck but causing no American casualties, Sergeant Rodesky-Flores said.

Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killing four policemen and wounding five, police and the American military said.

Mr. al-Jaafari had hoped to lure support away from the insurgency by including in his Cabinet members of the Sunni Arab minority. But members of his Shiite-dominated alliance have blocked candidates with links to Saddam Hussein’s regime, which brutally repressed Shiites and Kurds.

Lawmakers from Mr. al-Jaafari’s United Iraqi Alliance said agreement has been reached on who would fill the oil and electricity ministries, which are destined for Shiites.

Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, oil minister in the former American-appointed Governing Council, will return to the position, a Shiite lawmaker involved in the talks, Ali al-Dabagh, said. An independent Shiite lawmaker, Mihsin Shlash, will be electricity minister, Mr. al-Dabagh and two other lawmakers said. Mr. Kuba confirmed the posts had been filled, but declined to discuss names.