Blasts rattle Iraq

At least three car bombs and several roadside bombs hit US and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens more, Iraqi police said.

The past 10 days have seen a relative lull in violence despite a constitutional referendum on October 15 and the start of Saddam Hussein's trial for crimes against humanity. But US commanders have warned of more attacks in the run-up to December 15 elections that they fear insurgents will try to disrupt.

The US military death toll in Iraq is approaching the psychological landmark of 2,000, focusing attention on the security situation more than two-and-a-half years after the US-led invasion. The toll stood at 1,996 yesterday afternoon.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington was determined to face down the insurgency and build Iraq into a stable, democratic ally.

"It is absolutely the case that you have evil men, violent men, who seem determined to try to throw this off course. But they haven't been able to," she told BBC television in an interview.

In the first of yesterday's attacks, a car bomb killed four people, including two police officers, when it exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad. The blast also injured 14 others, both police and civilians.

Another car bomb in the northeastern Zaiuna district of the capital targeted a US patrol of three Humvee armoured vehicles, according to Iraqi police who said at least three US soldiers were wounded and one Humvee was set alight. There was no immediate confirmation from the US military.

Iraqi police also reported that one US soldier was killed and one wounded when a roadside bomb hit a US patrol in central Baghdad. The US military had no immediate information.

Around 150,000 US soldiers remain in Iraq, battling an insurgency by those who oppose the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government and its US backers. In Kirkuk yesterday, seven Iraqi civilians were wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber rammed a US Humvee, Iraqi police said. There was no immediate word from the US military on whether there were any US casualties.

Another Iraqi was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in Kirkuk, police colonel Taha Abdulla said, while other attacks in Baquba and Tikrit killed two Iraqi police officers.