Truck bomb kills 40 near Anbar mosque

Baghdad: A truck bomb killed 40 people and wounded 64 near a Sunni mosque in a market in volatile western Iraq on Saturday, police said.

The bomb exploded in the town of Habaniya, 85 km west of Baghdad in Anbar province, where US forces are battling a fierce Sunni Arab insurgency.

Police said they believed the mosque was the target, adding that the market had been destroyed and 64 people wounded. Women and children were among the dead, they said.

Insurgents earlier stormed an Iraqi police checkpoint near Baghdad airport, killing eight policemen in a bold challenge to a US-backed security crackdown in the capital aimed at halting raging sectarian violence.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki expressed optimism about the 10-day old security plan, saying US and Iraqi forces had killed around 400 suspected militants since it started.

In Baghdad, more than 20 loud explosions in quick succession rocked a southern district of the capital after night fell.

The US military said the cause of the blasts were "indirect fire" and the result of US-Iraqi military operations during a major security crackdown in Baghdad.