By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed eight Iraqi policemen in an attack Monday on a station on Baghdad's northern outskirts, their commander said, as insurgents continued attacks despite the capture of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Hours later, several large explosions reverberated in central Baghdad and
smoke rose on the east bank of the Tigris River. The cause was not immediately
clear.
"There were three explosions far away," said Thapa Tek Bahdur, a Nepalese
security guard in the so-called Green Zone, the headquarters of the U.S.-led
coalition that oversees Iraq (news
- web
sites).
Earlier Monday, a suicide bomber drive a yellow four-wheel drive taxi to the
gate of a police station in the capital's northern outskirts and detonated the
explosives, killing eight policemen, a police commander said.
Lt. Col. Ali Amer said 10 officers were injured in the blast in Husainiyah
district. The blast left a 3-foot-deep crater about 10 yards from the entrance
to the building whose facade was demolished by the blast.
Earlier Monday, seven officers were wounded when another car bomb exploded in
the western Ameriyah neighborhood.
In another attack, seven officers were wounded when another car bomb exploded
in the western Ameriyah neighborhood.
The attacks came less than a day after U.S. officials announced Saddam's
capture in a cramped, underground hide-out near the town of Adwar, a few miles
from the former dictator's birthplace of Uja.
U.S. officials in Baghdad have warned that the capture could lead to an
increase in insurgents' attacks against troops of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq
and their Iraqi allies. On Sunday, President Bush (news
- web
sites) cautioned that there would be more bloodshed and that the capture
"does not mean the end of violence in Iraq."
The bombing in Ameriyah occurred just after 8 a.m., when a suicide bomber
drove his car into the gate of a police station there, said Capt. Brad Loudon.
The vehicle detonated killing the driver and injuring several policemen,
Loudon said.
A second car then drove into the compound and was immediately engaged by
gunfire from U.S. soldiers and policemen. The driver abandoned the vehicle and
ran into the building, where he was arrested, Loudon said.
U.S. troops cordoned off the area.
"It was a terrorist operation," said Col. Jabar Anwar, commander of the
station which houses the police force's bureau of criminal investigations.
He said the second bomb, which consisted of a torpedo warhead and a naval
mine, was successfully defused.
"Such attacks were going on and we expect them to continue even after the
capture of Saddam," Anwar said.
On Sunday, a suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb another police
station near Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 others, the
U.S. military said.
The car bombing in Khaldiyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killed police
officers, city workers and civilian bystanders, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jeff Swisher
said.
No American soldiers were in the area when the bomb exploded and none was
hurt in the blast, the military said.
The recent bombings were the latest of several police station blasts that
have killed dozens of police officers in the past few months. Anti-U.S.
assailants appear to target the police and other municipal officials because
they are viewed as collaborators with the U.S.-led
occupation. The
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