04 March 2005	Friday	22 Muharram 1426

BAGHDAD, March 3: Two suicide car bombs outside Iraq's interior ministry and another near a police station in Baquba killed six people on Thursday.

The US military announced the death in action of another three of its soldiers, pushing the total number killed since the invasion close to the 1,500 mark.

The Baghdad bombs went off at morning rush hour, with the first vehicle serving as a decoy for the second and more powerful blast outside the ministry, a strategic post in the battle against the resistance.

"A Kia vehicle tried to enter the checkpoint and at this moment blew up. It was not that effective but made a large amount of smoke so we couldn't see anything," said policeman Mohammed Jaafar.

"Two minutes later, a Jeep Cherokee reached the checkpoint and opened fire with an MG machinegun and police fired back but it was too late because he reached the checkpoint and blew up."

Five policemen were killed and five more wounded, an interior ministry official said. In Baquba, north of the capital, one person was killed and 18 wounded in a car bomb attack near a police station, a police official said. Another policeman said it was a suicide attack.

The attacks came just a day after a pair of suicide car bombs targeted Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, killing 10 and wounding dozens more. Two US soldiers also died on Wednesday after being wounded by a home made bomb, the US army said. A third soldier was killed in the Babil province.

GOVT FORMATION: Iraq's leading Shia bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, upped pressure on the Kurds to join it in a new government. Abdul Aziz al Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq party, professed optimism a deal was imminent as the UIA and Kurds met on Thursday for formal talks, with the Kurdish side expected to submit its demands. -AFP