Nine policemen were killed and 31 wounded when a suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives at their checkpoint west of Baghdad today.
A police source said most of the wounded were policemen. The attack took place in the Khan Dhari area on the western outskirts of the Iraqi capital.
Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq over the past year, but car bombs, roadside bombs and other attacks remain common. Last week a suicide bomber killed 50 people in a crowded restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk.
The Kirkuk suicide bombing marred what had otherwise been an unusually peaceful week in Iraq after the years of sectarian bloodshed and insurgent violence that followed the 2003 UW-led invasion.
The religious holiday of Eid al-Adha saw tens of thousands of people emerge from sandbagged homes in Baghdad and take to the city's parks and fair grounds.