RAMADI, April 6: A suicide bomber targeting a police station exploded his truck full of chlorine gas in a residential area on Friday, killing 27 people in the biggest chemical attack by insurgents in Iraq since the invasion.

Amid the continuing violence, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered that jobs and pensions be offered to former officers of executed president Saddam Hussein's military, many of whom had joined the Sunni insurgency against US forces.

The chemical attack took place in the western city of Ramadi. First reports said that 20 people had been killed, but the toll was later amended by police.

“At least 27 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in the attack,” said a local police officer, specifying that another 30 were wounded.

He said the bomber was targeting the police station but blew himself up “200 metres away from it near the residential area of Al-Tamim.” The explosion occurred next to a market and residential buildings, he said.

“The truck contained many tonnes of chlorine and TNT which were covered by sacks full of fertilisers,” he said.

Earlier, police Colonel Tareq al-Dualiami said that two of the dead were policemen, adding that at least another two police officers were wounded.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of the Sunni Anbar province, is a stronghold of Sunni insurgents and a prime base of Al Qaeda operators.

The province has witnessed increased insurgent attacks in recent months after a group of Sunni tribes joined with Iraqi government forces to battle Al Qaeda militants.

Last month 350 civilians were hospitalised after three chlorine bombs exploded near Ramadi and Fallujah, a former rebel bastion town.

The support of Sunni Arab tribes is expected to get a boost after Maliki's decision to offer jobs or pensions to members of the former army.

All former officers with the rank of lieutenant colonel or above will be offered a pension, Maliki's office said in a statement.

Those ranked major or lower can be absorbed into a new army being built up by US-led coalition forces, while lower-grade officers with specialised skills such as medicine or engineering will be absorbed in government ministries.

On Friday, clashes were reported from the central city of Diwaniyah where Iraqi and US soldiers launched a major crackdown against militiamen, imposing a curfew and sealing off city approaches.

“Iraqi Army troops swept into the city in the early morning hours April 6 to disrupt militia activity and return security and stability here back to the government of Iraq,” the US military said in a statement.

“Soldiers of the 8th Iraqi army division supported by soldiers and paratroopers from multi-national division Baghdad began Operation Black Eagle at approximately 6:30 am (0230 GMT),” it added.

Iraq two days ago announced that a massive crackdown launched in Baghdad eight weeks ago was being extended to other flashpoint areas.

One person was killed and 19 were wounded in the Diwaniyah clashes on Friday, said Hamid Gaati, head of the local department of health, and a security official. An official in the local office of the movement of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who controls the Mahdi Army milita, confirmed that its fighters and US troops were clashing around Salim Street and Al-Askari.

“Most of the clashes are in northern Diwaniyah and are because of the raids and arrests done by occupation forces against the Mahdi followers,” he said, adding that top members of Sadr's movement were to meet in the city on Saturday.

An 8th Iraqi army division source said that 25 suspected militiamen had been detained in an operation that he said would continue for several days.

“The Iraqi police are being infiltrated by militia and now the Iraqi army and the US military control all the police stations, and checkpoints and the streets,” he said on condition of anonymity.—AFP