Iraq

Bomb kills at least 17 near Baghdad

KHALDIYAH, Iraq - A suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi police station Sunday near Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33, hours before the announcement of Saddam Hussein's capture, the U.S. military said.

Also Sunday, an American soldier was killed trying to defuse a roadside bomb.

The car bombing in Khaldiyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killed police officers, city workers and civilian bystanders, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jeff Swisher.

No American soldiers were in the area when the bomb exploded, the military said.

An emergency room administrator at a hospital in the nearby city of Ramadi put the toll higher - 21 killed and more than 20 wounded. Many victims were Iraqi police officers and workers sweeping the street outside the district police office, said hospital administrator Haitham Bahar Taha.

Mohammed Abed, a Khaldiyah police officer, said an "unfamiliar" car was parked outside the station moments before the blast.

Khaldiyah is in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where attacks against occupation troops and their Iraqi allies have been fiercest. The area is west and north of the capital.

The bombing was 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 device that killed the U.S. soldier Sunday was placed on a telephone pole next to the road near al-Haswah, 25 miles south of Baghdad. The soldier, an explosives disposal specialist, approached the bomb to disarm it when it exploded. The soldier was the 453rd to die in Iraq.

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