Car bombers strike near Green Zone

A double suicide car bomb attack devastated a police station just outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, yesterday, killing seven people and wounding 57 in the latest strike against Iraq's beleaguered security forces.

Another suicide car bomber destroyed a bus carrying Kurdish militiamen in Mosul, killing seven, and insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades also fought street battles with US troops in the northern city for a second day.

Police sources said the Baghdad attack, which shook the city centre shortly after 9.30 a.m. (7.30 Malta time), also destroyed 35 vehicles, including 17 police cars. It was not clear how many of those killed were police.

A thick column of black smoke rose from the site of the blasts, near a main entrance to the Green Zone, home to the interim Iraqi government and several foreign embassies.

The area around the site of the attack, which includes an entrance to the protected Green Zone often used by foreigners and the media, was quickly sealed off by US and Iraqi forces.

Guerrillas have repeatedly attacked Iraqi police and police stations in recent days, part of a months-long campaign to destroy the confidence of the fledgling security force.

One US soldier was killed and one wounded yesterday when a roadside bomb hit their convoy near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, the army said.

On the Iraq-Jordan border, the military said two soldiers with the multinational force were killed and five wounded in a car bomb attack on Friday. Their nationalities were not given.

The attacks raised to at least 991 the number of US troops killed since the war was launched last year.

In Mosul, explosions rocked parts of the city as insurgents clashed with US forces. On Friday, insurgents attacked police stations and US patrols in Mosul, and during heavy street battles US forces killed 22 rebels, the military said.

On Friday, guerrillas mortared and then stormed a police station near Baghdad airport, killing at least 11 police and setting free about 50 prisoners held in its jail.

Insurgents killed 12 at a remote police station in western Iraq earlier this week, and last month overran more than a dozen police stations in Mosul in co-ordinated attacks, looting their weapons and torching or blowing them up.

The attacks on Iraqi security forces, and the lack of backbone shown by some, have worried US military commanders who have based their exit strategy on building up capable Iraq police and National Guards.

This week, the Pentagon announced it was deploying an additional 12,000 US troops to Iraq in the coming weeks to help with election security, boosting troop numbers to 150,000, their highest level in the Iraq war.