At least four people died and scores were wounded in the northern city of Mosul when a driver hurtled towards a police station and crashed into concrete barriers where his car exploded.

The US military said five Iraqis were killed in the attack, including two policemen, while more than 40 others were wounded.

But an official at the morgue said only four bodies had been received after the blast ripped through the entrance of the police station and gutted nearby cars.

Medics at the two main hospitals in Mosul said a total of 51 police and civilians had been admitted with injuries.

Iraq's fledgling US-backed police and security forces have become frequent targets of insurgent attacks.

"A car bomb exploded at 8:05 (0405 GMT) in front of the police station in Summer, eastern Mosul," said local police Captain Nidam Mohammed.

The attack came four days after 70 people were killed in a bombing outside a police unit in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, and less than a week after four died in another suicide attack outside the US military base in Mosul.

In Baghdad, at least one Iraqi was killed and three were wounded, including a driver for the BBC, when a bomb narrowly missed a US convoy during the morning rush hour, the Al-Kindi hospital and the British news corporation said.

Later, two mortar rounds were fired on an Iraqi National Guard base, where at least 35 people were killed in a suicide car bombing on June 17.

In Fallujah, US air strikes and clashes on the ground between US marines and insurgents continued overnight in the fiercely anti-US Sunni Muslim bastion, west of Baghdad.

The city has proved one of the deadliest flashpoints for US marines based in Iraq.

"We have 10 killed and 40 injured from both the bombardment and the earlier clashes," said Rafih al-Issawi, director of Fallujah's general hospital.

Many of the injured were women and children.

Insurgents attacked three military convoys, drawing return fire from US troops. Ensuing air strikes destroyed one building and an insurgent position, the US military said.

After daybreak, an AFP correspondent saw one house completely gutted, another half flattened and traces of cluster bombs littering in the street. All the electricity cables were down.

Marines have conducted at least seven air strikes on Fallujah over the past 40 days in which it said dozens of suspected loyalists of alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi were killed.

Zarqawi, who has a 25 million dollar bounty on his head, is blamed for some of the bloodiest car bombings and attacks in Iraq. His group of militants has also claimed a string of killings and kidnappings of foreigners.

In Ramadi, the provincial capital of the restive Al-Anbar province, three civilians were wounded during a gunfight between police and insurgents, police and a doctor said.

As Beirut reported two Lebanese businessmen kidnapped in Iraq, New Delhi said abductors of seven truckers, including three Indians, had extended their deadline for starting to kill the captives by another 24 hours.

The Indian government did not say what the new deadline was, but a junior minister told reporters: "I think it is 8:30 pm (1500 GMT Sunday)."

A self-styled tribal mediator said talks to broker the release of the seven truckers were expected to continue Sunday with their Kuwaiti employer.

The group, which also includes three Kenyans and an Egyptian, were snatched 11 days ago by the previously unknown "Islamic Secret Army - Holders of the Black Banners".

Two Turkish transport companies said they may suspend operations in Iraq to save the lives of two drivers taken hostage by Zarqawi's group.

In Jordan, the family of another trucker held hostage threatened to stage a protest outside the royal palace unless the government took action to secure his release along with that of three colleagues.

Insurgent groups in Iraq have made hostage-taking a strategic tool to drive US allies out of the country. The Philippines withdrew its troops a month earlier than scheduled to save one of its nationals held hostage.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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