BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – The Iraqi government pledged yesterday it would do everything in its power to protect voters from insurgent attacks during this month’s national elections, as militants announced they’d killed 15 captive Iraqi National Guardsmen for co-operating with the Americans.

Eight other Iraqi guardsmen and one Iraqi civilian were injured yesterday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt near the gate of a military camp near Hillah, Iraqi officials said.

Guerrillas in the northern city of Mosul blasted a building to be used as a polling station with machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire yesterday, injuring one civilian, a hospital official said.

Al-Jazeera television broadcast a videotape in which militants said they had kidnapped a Brazilian engineer in an ambush near Beiji. Police said the engineer was missing after an ambush there Wednesday in which a British security guard and an Iraqi colleague were killed.

In Baghdad, the interior minister announced further security measures for the January 30 balloting, in which Iraqis will choose a new 275-member National Assembly and 18 provincial councils.

The minister, Falah al-Naqib, confirmed that Baghdad’s international airport would be closed for three days starting on the eve of the balloting.

The nighttime curfew in Baghdad and other cities will be extended and restrictions imposed on private vehicles to guard against car bombs, he added.

Al-Naqib told reporters all leaves and passes for police and military forces had been cancelled for the election period and that further measures would be announced closer to voting day.