Iraq police station bomb kills 10

Mourners bear the body of Mosul's governor killed on Wednesday

A car bomb has exploded near the main police station and government offices in the Iraqi town of Haditha, killing at least 10 people and injuring 27.

The explosion happened as the police were beginning their morning shift, an interior ministry official said.

Police apparently thwarted a second car bomb in Karbala, while northern and southern pipelines were attacked.

The violence follows Wednesday's Baghdad bombing that killed 10 and shattered a period of relative calm.

Car chase

The bombing in Haditha appeared to have targeted the police station, with at least three officers among the dead, officials said.

The blast damaged several buildings in the town, which lies 200km (120 miles) north-west of Baghdad on the main road from the Iraqi capital to the Syrian border.

Violence has also flared in other parts of the country.

Police in the southern city of Karbala said a car bomb exploded overnight about 500m from a base where Bulgarian soldiers are garrisoned.

Officers said they chased the vehicle after receiving a tip-off that it was carrying explosives. The occupants detonated the charges when they realised they were surrounded.

Bulgaria is anxiously awaiting news of a Bulgarian hostage after a deadline for his execution passed. Militants beheaded the man's colleague on Monday.

Pipelines hit

A rocket attack in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in the north killed four people, believed to be members of the same family, while reports from Ramadi, west of Baghdad, say five Iraqis died in a gunfight with US forces.

Iraq's oil infrastructure has been repeatedly hit

The pipeline running from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan has been set ablaze, halting exports, officials said.

Police in the south reported that saboteurs had drilled holes in a key pipeline near Basra.

The upsurge in violence follows the bloodiest day in the country since the handover of power by the US-led authorities to Iraq's interim government at the end of June.

A car bomb just outside the area housing government offices and the US and UK embassies in Baghdad killed at least 10 people and injured about 40 on Wednesday morning.

Hours later, assailants killed the governor of Mosul and two of his guards.

Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the Baghdad blast was in retaliation for his government's moves against terror suspects and criminals.

The BBC's Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says the prime minister has been enjoying a relatively calm period since his government took office just over two weeks ago.

He has been quick to try to assert his authority and convince Iraqis that security is his top priority.