The blast, which also wounded at least 41 policemen, left a two-metre (six-foot) crater and badly damaged the police station in the centre of the mainly Shiite city of Hilla, in addition to several nearby houses and shops.

The violence comes with just months to go before all US troops must withdraw from Iraq, with Iraqi officials insisting local forces can maintain security in the war-wracked country.

A police major and an official in the city's health department, both speaking on condition of anonymity, put the toll from Thursday's suicide bombing at 13 dead and 41 wounded, all policemen.

Among the dead in the 7:00 am (0400 GMT) blast were a police captain and a first lieutenant. There were also three officers among the wounded.

The explosion badly damaged the facade and several sections of the police station, which houses the emergency-response brigade, and left a crater two metres (more than six feet) in diameter, an AFP journalist said.

Several nearby houses and shops were also seriously damaged, and security forces cordoned off the blast site.

The attack was the deadlist to hit Iraq since March 29, when a band of Al-Qaeda gunmen and suicide bombers managed to storm a provincial council building in the central city of Tikrit killing 58 people.

Thursday's suicide bombing also comes nearly a year after four co-ordinated car bombs against factory workers in Hilla killed 50 people on May 10, 2010.

Mainly Shiite Hilla lies just beyond the edge of a confessionally mixed area south of the capital that earned the monicker Triangle of Death during the sectarian bloodshed that peaked in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

Over the years it has been repeatedly bombed by Sunni insurgents loyal to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose death in a US special forces raid in Pakistan President Barack Obama announced in a White House address late on Sunday.

Violence is down dramatically in Iraq from its peak, but attacks remain common. A total of 211 Iraqis were killed in violence in April, according to official figures.

Some 45,000 American soldiers remain stationed in Iraq, with all of them set to withdraw by the end of the year, under the terms of a bilateral security pact.

But a series of US officials visited Baghdad last month to press Iraqi leaders to decide quickly on whether or not they wanted an extended American military presence beyond the year-end deadline.

earlier related report
Seven killed in Iraq attacks
Baghdad (AFP) May 4, 2011 - At least seven people were killed in new violence in Iraq on Wednesday, including three civilians in roadside bombings south of Baghdad, medical and security sources said.

The civilians died in explosions at around 8:00 am (0500 GMT) in the village of Al-Khanafsa, north of the central Shiite shrine city of Karbala, a police officer said.

It was not immediately clear who was the target of the attack which also wounded three civilians, according to Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for Karbala provincial health services.

West of the main northern city of Mosul, two truck drivers were killed when gunmen opened fire on a convoy of lorries along a highway leading to the Syrian border, an Iraqi army officer said.

In the Al-Shaab neighbourhood of north Baghdad, an employee of the department of transport was assassinated by unknown attackers using guns with silencers, an interior ministry official said.

Police officer Abdulhussein Jassem was killed in similar fashion in the Qahira district of north Baghdad.

Explosions in Baghdad and the oil-rich, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk left five people wounded, security officials said.

Violence levels are dramatically lower than at the peak of Iraq's sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 211 people were killed in violence in April, official figures showed.

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