RAMADI, Oct 6: A suicide car bomb ripped through a queue of young national guard recruits in western Iraq on Wednesday, killing 16 of them as Iraqi and US forces pursued their crackdown on the country's insurgency.

And British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, on his second day here, countered widespread scepticism that the war-torn country's tough-talking prime minister, Iyad Allawi, could stabilise Iraq in time for January elections.

In a rare car bombing in the barren western plains, a suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into a group of people signing up with the national guard at a military base in Anah, some 260 kilometres (160 miles) west of Baghdad.

"Ten people among a group of youngsters signing up with the national guard were killed and 24 others were wounded in the suicide attack, which took place in front of the national guard headquarters," a local police officer told AFP.

September saw the highest number of suicide car bombs, increasingly the weapon of choice among insurgents, since the overthrow of president Saddam Hussein last year.

The attack came as Iraq's fledgling security apparatus was involved in its largest operations to date, sweeping rebel bastions as part of a government bid to root out the insurgency.

The US military announced overnight a massive push in Babil province, south of Baghdad, in a bid to dismantle insurgent cells there and cut off the western rebel enclave from some of its rear bases.

And in an almost daily occurrence, US warplanes overnight pounded Fallujah, west of the capital, hitting what it described as a meeting of ring leaders loyal to alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq.

No casualties were reported. The town has been off-limits to ground troops for months and retaking it is supposed to mark the climax of a bid by Allawi's government and his US allies to reclaim the country's lawless hotspots ahead of the election.

In a similar operation, thousands of US-Iraq forces thrust into the rebel stronghold of Samarra last week. On Wednesday, elite Iraqi units and US troops were continuing their sweep for wanted militants there, while pressing on with emergency reconstruction work in the battle-scarred city.

The re-capture of Samarra, a key insurgent hotbed north of Baghdad, is being held as a model for future efforts to retake the country's trouble spots. "We must have a suitable atmosphere for the conduct of elections, and the security situation requires exceptional" forces, Allawi told the interim parliament on Tuesday.

Allawi met with Straw, one of his staunchest allies in the bumpy transition process, and told reporters late Tuesday they had agreed on all issues. -AFP