A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle as police tried to stop him reaching a US and Iraqi base in Baghdad today, killing at least four policemen and two civilians.
A US military spokesman said initial reports suggested that 12 Iraqis could have been killed, including four police, with 13 Iraqis wounded.
But Mr Abdul Razzak Kadhem, senior police officer at the scene, said four police and two civilians were killed.
Mr Kadhem said a suspicious vehicle was driving toward an Iraqi military college in southeast Baghdad, where many US soldiers are also based. Two police cars tried to intercept the vehicle and it exploded, destroying one police car and badly damaging another.
Two charred bodies could be seen in the blackened wreckage of the destroyed police car. Mr Kadhem said four policemen were wounded by the blast in addition to those killed.
Several civilian vehicles were also damaged.
Later, a US soldier was killed and two others wounded today when insurgents attacked their unit with a car bomb and small arms fire north of Baghdad.
A military spokeswoman said the soldiers returned fire wounding one of the attackers.
The attack outside the town of Taji brought the number of US soldiers killed in action in Iraq to at least at least 607.