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37 killed in Iraq blasts, attacks

Reuters, samana
Insurgents detonated four car bombs and attacked police stations in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Saturday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 62, police and health officials said.
The fourth blast occurred at 12:30 (0930 GMT) when a suicide bomber rammed a car into a police station, killing 10 Iraqi police officers and wounding five, police said.
A health official said 23 people, including nine policemen, were killed and 40 wounded, among them 17 policemen, in die first three
bomb explosions in the Sunni Muslim city.
The attacks in Samarra came as US forces prepared for a full-scale offensive against the rebel strongholds of Falluja and Ramadi, in Iraq’s central Sunni heartland.
The local commander of the Iraqi Rapid Reaction Force, Brigadier Abdul-Razzak al - Jarmin, was among the dead in the first two blasts near die town hall and a nearby checkpoint. Samarra’s mayor, Major General Tariq Oweid, was wounded.
"I saw a car trying to reach the town hall," said bookshop owner Mohammed Ahmed. "When police
stopped it, it exploded."
A US spokesman, Captain Bill Coppernoll of the 1st Infantry Division based in Tikrit, said a joint US-Iraqi National Guard patrol had spotted a vehicle bomb near Samarra at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) and destroyed it.
"The soldiers identified, engaged and destroyed die (vehicle bomb). One soldier and four civilians were wounded in the blast. The vehicle appears to have been an Iraqi police truck stolen earlier from the Baiji police station," he said.
Police said insurgents also carried out simultaneous attacks on three police stations in Samarra, 62 miles north of Baghdad, killing four policemen, wounding 17 and capturing 10.
Coppemoll said three Iraqi police were killed and six wounded when three mortar rounds landed near one Samarra police station at about 9:30 a.m. Small arms fire was also reported.
A third car bomb exploded later, targeting a US convoy that was trying to reach the scene of the first two bombings, police said. They had no word on casualties in that attack.
Coppemoll said four Iraqi servicemen were wounded in that explosion, which he said went off near a joint patrol with US forces in Samarra at 10 a.m. There were no US casualties.
"I saw a dead National Guard burning on the ground," said one witness after the first bombings. "I saw people carrying away another corpse."
Witnesses said US troops opened fire amid chaotic scenes in the city center, hitting some cars. Rescue services could not immediately reach them to evacuate any casualties.
Residents said the US military had declared a curfew due to start at midday (0900 GMT).
US and Iraqi forces stormed Samarra early last month to drive insurgents off the streets of the city, but guerrillas have remained active.
Rebels often attackstate buildings and fledgling security forces to undermine Iraq’s US-backed interim government.
The bodies of two Iraqi contractors working for US forces were found in Samarra on Friday, police said. They had been beaten and shot several times in the head and chest.
The body of an Iraqi driver who had been transporting construction material for a US base near Balad, north of Baghdad, was also found on a roadside the same day, they said.