Suicide car bomber at western checkpoint kills 7 Iraqi security officers

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide bomber blew up a car Monday at a police checkpoint in western Iraq, killing seven government security force members and injuring nine in the latest strike against the country's fledgling police and National Guard troops, Iraqi officials said.

Also Monday, two American soldiers were killed and three wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. command said. The victims were members of the U.S. Army's Task Force Baghdad, which is in charge of security in the capital.

Separately, one U.S. soldier died and two were injured in a vehicle accident 30 miles northwest of the town of Kut in eastern Iraq, the military said.

U.S. forces immediately sealed off the road after the insurgent attack against Iraqi security forces in Baghdadi, 120 miles northwest of the capital, police Lt. Mohammed al-Fehdawi said.

A hospital official there, Hatim Ahmed, confirmed seven police and Iraqi National Guard members were killed and nine were wounded. Dozens of Iraqi security forces have died in attacks throughout the country following the U.S.-led assault on Fallujah earlier this month.

Elsewhere, gunmen stormed a police station west of the city of Samarra late Sunday, a spokesman said. The attackers, who faced no opposition, looted the armory and commandeered several police cars before leaving the area.

U.S. troops arrived at the station Monday morning and arrested two dozen people, the policeman said.

In Basra, British and Iraqi troops were deployed around the headquarters of the Iraqi National Guard southern regional headquarters after the chief staff, Brig. Gen. Diaa al-Kadhimi, refused to accept an order from Baghdad to remove himself from his post, Iraqi officials said.

Al-Kadhimi was to have been replaced by the national guard chief in Amarah, Salah al-Maliki. The standoff was continuing Monday afternoon.

South of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched raids Sunday that killed 17 suspected insurgents, Iraqi police said. The raids included a dawn speedboat assault by U.S. Marines and British and Iraqi troops on suspected insurgent hideouts along the Euphrates River, British media reported.

The speedboat assault was the biggest operation of its kind so far in Iraq, with 130 troops racing up the Euphrates in boats armed with machine guns and grenade launchers, according to the British reports.