Suicide bomber kills 12 in attack on Iraqi police

IRAQ: A suicide car bomber ploughed into policemen waiting to collect their salaries at a police station west of Ramadi yesterday…

IRAQ: A suicide car bomber ploughed into policemen waiting to collect their salaries at a police station west of Ramadi yesterday, killing 12 people in the latest insurgent attack on Iraq's beleaguered security forces.

At least 10 people were wounded in the blast, and 90 per cent of the casualties were policemen, said Nazar al-Hiti, a doctor in the town of Hit around 200km west of Baghdad, where the dead and wounded were taken.

In Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded as a US patrol went past, killing two American soldiers and wounding three.

Thirteen US soldiers and two foreign civilians were also wounded in a mortar attack south of Baghdad.

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At least 968 US troops have been killed in action in Iraq and 9,000 have been wounded, most of them seriously.

Insurgents trying to drive out US-led soldiers and topple the American-backed government of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi have repeatedly attacked Iraqi police and soldiers.

The US military has warned that violence will worsen in Iraq as elections scheduled for January 30th approach.

The US military has said it will move into rebel-held areas by the end of the year to pacify them ahead of the elections. Earlier this month, a major US offensive crushed guerrillas in the insurgent bastion of Falluja, west of Baghdad.

US marines, British troops and Iraqi forces have also launched an operation to hunt down insurgents and criminals in a cluster of lawless towns on the Euphrates just south of Baghdad.

Marines said they killed several insurgents and captured 32 suspects in a series of actions south of Baghdad on Sunday that included a high-speed river-borne raid on suspected weapons dumps on the Euphrates.

Two marines were killed in the area on Sunday, when a roadside bomb exploded beside their convoy.

Insurgents have been largely driven out of Falluja, which is now a ghost town with few civilians seen on streets scarred by days of heavy fighting. But they have regrouped elsewhere and violence has surged in other areas, particularly Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad.

The US military says Jordanian guerrilla leader and al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, its top foe in Iraq, may have moved to Mosul ahead of the Falluja offensive.

Guerrillas stormed and ransacked several police stations in Mosul earlier this month, forcing some US troops to be diverted back from Falluja.

Since then, insurgents have mounted a campaign of killing Iraqi National Guardsmen and policemen and dumping their bodies in the city as a warning to others.