Man dressed like officer explodes car bomb at police station

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A man wearing a police uniform drove a car bomb into police headquarters in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in the largest of a series of attacks on Thursday in Iraq that left a total of 30 people dead, including two U.S. soldiers.

The violence came a day after interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi announced he was forming a coalition to try to hold onto his post in the next government and block the candidate of the dominant Shiite political alliance. Kurdish parties also weighed in with demands for top posts, setting up a possible showdown over the role of religion in a new Iraq.

The U.S. command said two American soldiers were killed and two wounded in bomb attacks Thursday, one northeast of Baghdad in Qaryat, and a second near Samarra, west of Qaryat.

At least five other Iraqi police were killed in separate attacks across the insurgent-wracked country, including another suicide car bomb assault on a police convoy in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the capital.

Two roadside bombs in Qaim, near the Syrian border, also killed four Iraqi National Guardsmen, Iraqi Lt. Col. Abid Ajab Al-Salmani said.

In the capital, gunmen opened fire on a bakery, killing two people and wounding a third, police said. Several blasts echoed through the city at midday, but their cause was not immediately known.

The blast in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, occurred at one of the station's busiest times, when dozens of policemen were arriving to relieve colleagues who'd been working all night, police Col. Saad Daham said. The attack killed 15 police and wounded nearly two dozen others.

"He waited until the shift change, then he exploded the car," Daham said of the attacker, adding the aim was "to kill as many as possible."

Lieutenant's uniform

Daham said the bomber was able to slip into the station undetected because he was wearing a police lieutenant's uniform. He blamed guards at the station's gates for allowing the assailant to enter without checking his papers or searching his vehicle.

Twenty cars were set ablaze after the massive blast, sending clouds of smoke into the sky. An Associated Press photographer on the scene saw at least 10 charred bodies laying on the ground, which was splattered with pools of blood and bits of human flesh.

Several ambulances raced to the blast site, ferrying casualties to a local hospital. U.S. troops sealed off the area and set up checkpoints and searched vehicles across the city.

Elsewhere, insurgents am-bushed a police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk with a roadside bomb, killing two policemen and injuring three.

In Iskandariyah, a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of an office that serves as the local headquarters of the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killing five people, including three police officers and a child who was walking down the road at the time, the government said.

Police initially said the attack targeted the town's police chief, Col. Salman Ali, who escaped unharmed.

Insurgents have relentlessly attacked U.S. and Iraqi security forces with car bombs throughout the past year in a campaign that's included kidnappings, beheadings and assassinations of top officials.

Ending the violence will be a top priority for the new government, once it takes office after parties who won seats in the national assembly negotiate who will get top posts.

Allawi's call for an inclusive coalition that would attract minority Sunni Arabs who form the core of the insurgency came as support for Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the leading Shiite candidate, began slipping in his United Iraq Alliance.

On Wednesday, just a day after al-Jaafari, 58, was nominated for the post of prime minister by the clergy-backed alliance, a Shiite political group that supports his one-time challenger, Ahmad Chalabi, threatened to withdraw its support.

The Shiite Political Council demanded that the alliance make amends after forcing Chalabi to end his pursuit of the prime minister's post by nominating one of the council's members for the largely ceremonial post of Iraqi president.

But the Kurdish coalition controlling 75 of the 275 seats in the National Assembly has long taken for granted that the alliance, which has 140 seats, will give the presidency to one of their leaders -- Jalal Talabani. Allawi's ticket won 40 seats.

The Kurds also issued a separate list of demands that include reinforcing autonomy in their northern provinces.

A two-thirds majority of the assembly is required for approval of the presidency -- the first step in a complicated process of filling the top positions. What this boils down to is that for al-Jaafari to become prime minister, he must win the approval of his own Shiite alliance, including Chalabi's supporters, and an additional 44 legislators.

Much is at stake.

The next prime minister will oversee the drafting of a new constitution, and some fear al-Jaafari could lead Iraq toward an Islamic theocracy, or even a strictly sectarian Shiite one. Allawi, Chalabi and the Kurds oppose efforts to codify or legislate religion.