A car bomb has exploded near a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, killing 10 people and injuring scores more, local police say.
Police captain Husam Mussayif said a car driven by a man wearing a police uniform tried to enter the police station compound and then detonated when the man was challenged.
Mussayif was wounded in the side and leg by shrapnel in the explosion.
Aljazeera learned 10 people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the bombing.
Mussayif said the toll was high because the police were going through a shift rotation and a large part of the force was in the compound at the time.
Assassination attempt
Also on Thursday, a police chief in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk escaped an assassination attempt that killed two police officers.
"A bomb exploded as my convoy drove past, killing two of my guards and wounding two others," said Colonel Khattab Umar Arif, the apparent target of the attack.
"Two vehicles in my escort were destroyed," he said, adding that the bomb exploded about 100 metres from his house, which he had just left.
A doctor at Kirkuk hospital said he had received two dead and four seriously wounded police officers from the attack
Police sealed the area of the blast, close to a checkpoint leading into Kirkuk airport, where US forces in the city are based.
Air strikes continue
Meanwhile, US forces used warplanes, including an AC-130, as they stepped up operations against fighters in the western al-Anbar province, the US military said on Thursday.
The operations on Wednesday were focused on the anti-US stronghold of Haqlaniya.
"US jets delivered two 500-pound bombs on insurgent fighting positions after insurgents ambushed a US marine patrol with small arms and heavy machine gun fire," a military statement said.
US forces also detained 29 fighters and seized several weapons caches in al-Anbar, the military said.
Marines were also continuing operations in Ramadi, the military said.
PHOTO CAPTION
Iraqi policemen carry away the body of a colleague in a carpet after a man wearing a police uniform drove a car bomb inside the headquarters of police Tikrit in Iraq, Feb. 24, 2005. (AP)