Five killed in Iraq car bombing

Iraqi police stations have seen a spate of attacks

A suicide car bomb in the central Iraqi town of Baquba has killed five people and injured 29.

The vehicle exploded outside a police station, despite attempts by guards to stop the car approaching the area.

Last week five people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a mosque in the town.

US forces say they killed eight suspected insurgents after what they called a drive-by attack in central Iraq on Tuesday.

Major Josslyn Aberle said US soldiers patrolling south-west of the town of Samarra were shot at by people in passing cars and returned fire.

In Baquba, a police officer at the scene of the blast said a car sped towards the police station moments before the explosion.

"I saw the remains of the car driver all over the place and the building was severely damaged," said Haidar Ismail.

Witnesses said the force of the blast threw scores of people to the ground.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, says the attack appears to be another attempt to destabilise the new police force being assembled by the coalition.

In other developments:

• US forces carried out a dawn raid in Samarra, detaining four men believe to be nephews of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri - the most wanted member of Saddam Hussein's regime still at large. Lieutenant-Colonel David Poirier said the men had been "enablers" for Mr al-Douri and they had good information on his whereabouts.

• At least two foreigners working for a US contractor were killed when gunmen opened fire on their vehicles near Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

• Major Josslyn Aberle says a large weapons cache - including 170 mortar bombs - was discovered outside Samarra on Tuesday by US troops, who detained one person.

• The US-led coalition announced the capture of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, a former regional Baath Party chairman and militia commander, who was number 54 on the US wanted list. He was arrested on Sunday in the Ramadi area, west of Baghdad.

• At least 21 US military personnel involved in the Iraq war have committed suicide since the conflict began last March, the Pentagon revealed. It is higher than the normal suicide rate in the US military recently.

Tuesday's incident in Samarra involved people firing from a convoy of eight vehicles, said Major Josslyn Aberle.

Two cars were destroyed while the six others were seized and their 26 occupants were arrested, she added.

Major Aberle described the way the Iraqis had initially opened fire on the US troops as a "drive-by shooting".

"The attackers fired on the soldiers with automatic weapons. They attempted to escape after the initial confrontation," she said.

Samarra, Tikrit and Baquba are all in an area known as the Sunni triangle, where resistance to the American-led occupation is strong.