A bomb exploded outside an Iraqi security force base just north of Baghdad today, killing nine people and wounding at least 20 in the latest attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying troops.
With the formal handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi government less than four weeks away, Baghdad has seen a surge in attacks in recent days.
"A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device was detonated, injuring 20 Iraqis and killing six," US Major Andreas Dekunpfy said at the scene of the blast at the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps base in Taji. US troops are also based nearby.
A group headed by suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the car bomb. "One of the heroes of this country, may he rest in peace, struck a military base belonging to US forces in Taji, north of Baghdad, and took many lives," said a statement claiming to be from Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, posted on an Islamist website.
"A second hero targeted a nearby centre of the army and police, who have sold their religion, honour and land for a cheap price and who are allied to the Americans," it added. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement.
Yesterday two US soldiers were killed and two wounded when a bomb was detonated near their convoy in the northeast of the capital. The previous day, five US soldiers were killed in an attack in the same area.
Insurgents also attacked foreigners travelling in civilian four-wheel drive vehicles on the airport road yesterday. Poland announced that four civilian security guards - two of them Polish and two believed to be American - were killed in the attack.
"The charred remains of four people were brought to a Baghdad morgue from the place of attack. We suspect the two others to be American civilian employees of the company," Polish Foreign Ministry official Grzegorz Szczesniak said.
Their convoy was attacked on the airport road, in an ambush that set two vehicles ablaze. The men worked for Blackwater, the US-based company that employed the four American guards killed in Falluja in March and mutilated by a mob, an incident that sparked a bloody siege of the city by US Marines.
South of Baghdad, gunmen burst into a police station in the town of Mussayab yesterday and forced police into a cell before detonating explosives in the building, police said. They said at least 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.
Iraqi police and security personnel are regularly targeted by insurgents, who have repeatedly threatened Iraqis who work with occupying troops and foreign organisations.
Also yesterday, a rocket-propelled grenade attack on Iraqis queuing up outside an army recruiting centre in the northern city of Mosul wounded 17 people. Washington has been trying to quell resistance ahead of the June 30th handover of sovereignty, but says its 138,000 troops in Iraq will remain well beyond that date to help struggling Iraqi security forces combat the insurgency.
New Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi repeated today his desire to see them stay on: "We would like the multinational forces to remain in Iraq for some time until Iraq is capable of handling its own security problems," he told the BBC.
Mr Allawi is set on rebuilding Iraq's military. He criticised the US dissolution of Saddam Hussein's army and said some former Baath party members should be reinstated.
International divisions over how long foreign troops should stay in Iraq have hampered efforts to agree a new resolution at the United Nations Security Council ahead of the handover.
US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, long at odds over Iraq, said after talks in Paris on Saturday they hoped for agreement soon. US officials would like to see a resolution passed in the coming week.
In a bid to win backing for their resolution, Washington and London have offered a third draft giving the interim Iraqi government the right to ask US-led forces to leave - a key demand of many Iraqis and some countries that opposed the war.