Blasts hit Mosul security forces

Part of a police station collapsed in the first of the three attacks

At least 35 people have been killed in three separate suicide attacks in and around the northern city of Mosul.

The US military said 15 people were killed in an attack on a police station in the central area of the Iraqi town.

Another 15 died when a bomber attacked people queuing outside a military base near the city - most of the dead are thought to be civilian labourers.

Five policemen died in an attack on a hospital, where some of the casualties from the other bombings had been taken.

These are the latest in a series of attacks aimed at the Iraqi security forces. At least 15 people were killed in Mosul and Samarra on Saturday.

In other developments:

• US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirms media reports that US officials have been having talks with Iraqi rebels

• A deputy police chief is shot dead on his way to work in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad

• A US soldier is killed and two injured in a roadside bomb in the city

• A woman and two children are killed by mortar rounds in a residential area of eastern Baghdad.

• Four Iraqi police are injured in a bomb attack at a checkpoint near the northern city of Kirkuk.

Roof collapse

A US military spokesman said a bomb went off at around 0800 local time (0400 GMT) in a parking lot at the entrance to the Kasak base, killing labourers queuing up to enter the base. Seven others were wounded.

The bomber was said to have been wearing a belt of explosives.

This is the third such attack on a military base in the area this month.

About an hour earlier, a suicide bomber had driven his lorry past the unfortified rear wall of the Bab al-Toob police station in a busy market area.

Several people were injured and part of the building was destroyed.

Witnesses say the bomb was concealed under a pile of watermelons in the back of the lorry.

The policemen were killed when the roof collapsed on them as they slept. At least one civilian died on the street outside.

The police station commander was reportedly among the injured.

Mosul's police force has been targeted before.

The BBC's Caroline Hawley in Baghdad says efforts have been made to rebuild it since mass desertions last year which followed concerted insurgent attacks.