Car bomb kills nine outside Iraqi-US base

Guerillas detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi-US base just north of Baghdad yesterday, killing nine people and wounding dozens as attacks intensified ahead of the formal end of the US-led occupation on June 30.

Pressing for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq's future, Washington said it was confident of a breakthrough at a special Security Council session later yesterday.

With the handover less than four weeks away, Baghdad has seen a surge in deadly attacks in recent days. Hospital sources said at least nine Iraqis were killed and 61 wounded in the blast at Taji.

A statement purported to be from a group headed by Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Washington suspects of links to al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the car bombing, describing it as a suicide attack.

"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.

Zarqawi and his group have claimed a series of suicide bombs and attacks in Iraq on US troops and Iraqi officials. US Major Andreas Dekunpfy told Reuters in Taji that a car bomb was used, but it was not clear if it was a suicide attack.

Poland's Foreign Ministry said four civilian security guards - two of them Polish and two believed to be American - were killed in an ambush on their convoy in Baghdad on Saturday. Zarqawi's group also claimed responsibility for that attack.

Also on Saturday, two soldiers were killed and two wounded when a bomb blew up near their convoy in northeastern Baghdad.

South of Baghdad, gunmen burst into a police station in the town of Mussayab on Saturday and forced police into a cell before setting off explosives in the building, police said. They said at least 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.

Washington has been trying to quell guerilla resistance ahead of the formal 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.

Iraq's new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, repeated yesterday 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.