Suicide car bombing kills 2 policemen in W Iraq

RAMADI, Iraq, July 20 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomb explosion struck a police patrol in western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Monday, killing two policemen and wounding four people, a provincial police source said.

A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police patrol and blew it up near the provincial government building in central Ramadi, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Two policemen were killed, and another two policemen injured, along with two children who were close to the scene during the attack, the source said.

Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, is the capital of Anbar province which once was a main stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq network, since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The province has been calm for nearly two years after local Sunni tribes allied with U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces, turning their rifles against al-Qaida militants who were accused of adopting hard line of Islam, killing thousands of Iraqis indiscriminately.

The attack came days after U.S. troops pulled out of Iraqi cities and towns in line with a security pact signed late last year between Baghdad and Washington.