Four policemen killed in Iraq blast

SAMARRA: A suicide car bomber rammed into a police station north of Baghdad, killing four officers, as dozens of gunmen assaulted a nearby checkpoint and killed two more, a security official said.   

The city of Samarra, 125 kilometres north of Baghdad, was put under indefinite curfew in the wake of the apparently coordinated assaults.   

The car bomber crashed through the gates of the police station in an apparent effort to hit the main building, but was stopped by a volley of gunfire, prompting him to detonate the vehicle just shy of his goal.   

Just south of Samarra, a gang of some 40 gunmen attacked a police checkpoint, killing two policemen and wounding two others.   

Samarra was once a major centre of the anti-US insurgency in Iraq until US forces over the last year surrounded much of the city with a massive wall to control access, resulting in a marked decline in incidents.   

Meanwhile in Baghdad, a bomb blast shattered the early morning calm, exploding next to a major metropolitan bus station and killing two civilians, said a security official.   

The official suggested that the bomb, which was planted next to al-Nahda bus station, was targeting a passing group of police, two of whom were wounded, along with five other passersby.