BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – New violence flared Monday in northern Iraq with 40 dead in a suicide bombing, while Shiite leaders cut off political talks and denounced the United States over a weekend raid that they said killed worshippers in a mosque.

Although the United States said no mosque was attacked, Shiites blamed the military for killing 22 people Sunday. Jawad al-Maliki, a lawmaker from the United Iraqi Alliance, said the Shiite bloc had canceled Monday’s session of negotiations to form a new government because of the raid.

“We suspended today’s meetings to discuss the formation of the government because of what happened at the al-Moustafa mosque,” al-Maliki said, adding that the alliance was expected to decide Tuesday when to resume the talks.

President Jalal Talabani said he called U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and they decided to form an Iraqi-U.S. committee to investigate the attack.

“I will personally supervise, and we will learn who was responsible. Those who are behind this attack must be brought to the justice and punished,” Talabani said.

Later, gunmen kidnapped 16 employees of an Iraqi trading company, an Interior Ministry official said. The men arrived at the headquarters of the Saeed import and export company in four civilian cars and appeared to rifle through papers and computers before driving away with the employees, Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi said.

Also, gunmen kidnapped a university president after barging into his home in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, a relative said. Four men grabbed Anbar University chief Abdul Hadi Rajab al-Hitawi and shoved him into a black car, said his brother-in-law, Khaldoun al-Ani.

The reason for the kidnapping was not clear, although al-Hitawi was kidnapped for nearly a month last year for ransom.

Monday’s bomber struck an army recruiting center, which is in front of a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base between Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, and the ancient city of Tal Afar.

The attack shortly after noon killed 40 people and wounded 30 others _ civilians and military personnel _ who had gathered among a crowd of recruits for the Iraqi army, the Defense Ministry said.

The U.S. military said no American troops were hurt in the bombing and reported only 30 dead.

Iraqi army Lt. Akram Eid told The Associated Press that many of the injured were taken to the Sykes U.S. Army base on the outskirts of Tal Afar, about 40 miles west of Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.

U.S. troops helped secure the area after the attack and treat the wounded, the U.S. military said.

In continuing sectarian violence, at least 21 more bodies were found _ many with nooses around their necks _ and mortar and bomb attacks killed 11 people in Baghdad and other towns.

Details of a joint U.S.-Iraqi Special Operations attack in northeast Baghdad late Sunday continued to filter out, with Iraqi officials angrily disputing a U.S. account of what happened.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said the Mustafa mosque was attacked with worshippers killed, while a U.S. statement said the operation focused on “a compound of several buildings and that “no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation.”

The military said the joint operation “killed 16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search on an objective with multiple structures.”

“They also detained 18 other individuals, discovered a significant weapons cache and secured the release of an Iraqi being held hostage,” the statement said.

Jabr angrily denounced the operation and rejected the U.S. account.

“Entering the Mustafa Shiite mosque and killing worshippers was unjustified and a horrible violation from my point of view,” Jabr said on the Al-Arabiya TV news network. “Innocent people inside the mosque offering prayer at sunset were killed.”

Police said gunmen fired on the joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol from a position in the neighborhood but not from the mosque. Police and representatives of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who holds great sway among poor Shiites in eastern Baghdad, said all those killed were in the complex for evening prayers and none was a gunmen.

AP reporters who visited the scene Monday morning said the site of the attack was a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex.

TV video shot Monday showed crumbling walls and disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer. It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners denouncing the attack.

Other video from Sunday night showed dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam’s living quarters, attached to mosque itself. The compound, once used by Saddam Hussein’s government, consists of a political party office, the mosque and quarters for the imam.

The video showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered on the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said the operation was only launched after observation of the site convinced the military it was being used as a kidnapping cell.

“In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it’s difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer,” Johnson said. “It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly recognized it as a community gathering center. I think this is frankly a matter of perception.”

Hundreds of people turned out for the funerals of those killed in the raid. The mourners, many carrying Iraqi flags, walked alongside coffin-laden trucks.

Baghdad Gov. Hussein Tahan said the local government had cut ties to the U.S. military and diplomatic mission “because of the cowardly attack on the al-Moustafa mosque.”

In the capital, a bomb exploded in a bus headed for the Sadr City slum, killing two passengers and wounding four others, police Col. Hassan Jaloob said. The bomb had been left in a bag, he said.

A rocket that hit the headquarters of the Shiite Fadhila party in southeast Baghdad killed seven people and wounded 13, including children, police Capt. Ali Mahdi said.

The latest violence came a day after 69 people were reported killed in one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in weeks. Most of the dead appeared to be victims of the shadowy Sunni-Shiite score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Thirty victims of the continuing sectarian slaughter _ most of them beheaded _ were found dumped on a village road north of Baghdad.

Among the 21 bodies reported Monday, nine were found in west Baghdad that were handcuffed, blindfolded and with ropes around their necks, police Lt. Akeel Fadhil said. Three bodies, of two men and a woman shot in the head, were found late Sunday in east Baghdad, police said.

At a farm east of Baghdad, the bodies of nine men kidnapped a day earlier were discovered by relatives, police said. All were shot in the head.

Much of the recent killing is seen as the work of Shiite militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry.

In an audiotape broadcast Monday, Saddam’s fugitive chief deputy purportedly called for Arab leaders to back Iraq’s Sunni-backed insurgency. The tape, which Al-Jazeera television said was made by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, appeared to be an address to the Arab League summit in Khartoum, Sudan, this week.

The voice said the Sunni-led insurgency was “the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.” It was impossible to determine the tape’s authenticity.

Al-Douri had been Revolutionary Command Council vice chairman and a longtime Saddam confidant.