Two roadside bomb blasts kill four in restive Diyala province

Baqouba/Baghdad: Two roadside bombs killed four people in the divided province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, police said.

A woman and her daughter and son were killed when their vehicle was struck by a bomb in Al Siniya village, east of the provincial capital Baqouba, police Major Mohammad Al Karkhi told AFP. The woman's husband was wounded in the 7:45am attack.

The second bomb went off as rescuers were transporting the victims of the first attack to hospital.

One person was killed and two wounded in that bombing, Al Karkhi said.

Al Siniya was a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Al Qaida until US troops and former rebels opposed to the militant network recently took control of the village.

Meanwhile, one US soldier was killed and another wounded in an explosion while conducting operations in the same province, the military said yesterday.

The latest death on Friday brings to 3,975 the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.

Violence in Mosul

Elsewhere in Iraq, there was more violence as an extremist attacked a police station in the northern city of Mosul, driving his explosives-laden car through protective barriers before detonating it outside the station's front gate, killing at least three and wounding 32, authorities said.

The US military said two Iraqi police were killed and one civilian, and that 12 officers were among the wounded.

Meanwhile, US and Iraqi officials in Baghdad said there was no firm date for senior officials from both sides to start talks on future relations, after a spokesman in Washington said they would start yesterday.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the talks would begin in earnest yesterday and that ambassador Ryan Crocker would lead the US delegation.

"There is no starting gun today for these talks. We'll just kind of evolve along," US embassy spokesman Phil Reeker said.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh also said there were no talks scheduled for yesterday.