A suicide truck bomber struck a police station in Baghdad today, killing 20 people, while three car bombers launched almost simultaneous attacks against a police station and checkpoints in western Iraq .
Officers said the 20 killed in the attack on the police station in the volatile southern district of Dora included 14 policemen and three detainees as well as three others working in the building. Another 26 were wounded, most of them police.
The blast caused major damage to the building, burying many victims in the rubble.
Dr Hamdi al-Alousi at al Qaim hospital put the death toll from the attacks in the Qaim area near the Syrian border at six with 17 people, mostly police, wounded. Anbar provincial police said eight people had died and 20 wounded.
A suicide truck bomber also struck near a Shia mosque in the town of Haswa about 60 km south of Baghdad, killing eight and wounding 39, a police source said.
In the Rutba area near the Jordanian border, the US military said it killed three suspected insurgents in an airstrike on their car. A fourth suspect blew himself up.
The spate of attacks came as US and Iraqi troops sealed off the Karrada district in the heart of Baghdad today, stopping all vehicles and pedestrians from entering the area as part of major crackdown on sectarian violence in the capital.
At least one woman was arrested in today's operation in Karrada after about 20 weapons, including AK-47 rifles and belt-fed machineguns were found in her house, an Iraqi army officer said.
The streets of Karrada, whose residents are mainly Shia Muslims and Christians and include several top politicians, were largely empty. Convoys of Humvee armoured vehicles roamed the area, which is close to the international Green Zone.
"There is an ongoing operation in the area," US military spokesman Major Steven Lamb said, without elaborating. One American soldier manning a checkpoint said the operation could last several hours or several days.