3 UK soldiers, 7 Iraqi cops killed in attacks

The policemen, killed in Baghdad and near the northern city of Mosul in separate attacks, were the latest victims of a suicide bombing campaign posing a severe security threat to Iraq.

Saturday's blasts also wounded 28 policemen, police and hospital sources said.

Friday's death toll climbed to at least 32 with news that an 11th suicide bombing in just one day had killed three policemen and four civilians at a checkpoint south of Baghdad in Iskindiriya at night.

The violence prompted Iraqi police to tighten their grip on Baghdad but insurgents struck again in southeast Iraq, killing three British soldiers with a roadside bomb.

Tense officers manned extra police checkpoints throughout the capital, Reuters journalists and drivers reported, after a series of blasts al-Qaeda described as an offensive to seize control of the city.

The campaign of attacks from Friday morning until after dark, struck US and Iraqi military and police targets at all points of the compass.

Police said at least 32 people were killed on Friday, mostly Iraqi troops, and more than 118 wounded, even though streets were mostly quiet for the Muslim week's holy day.

On Thursday two US Marines died near the Jordanian border in a roadside bombing during combat operations, the US military said in a statement Friday.

Suicide bombings are the biggest security nightmare for the government, which vowed to stabilise the country after January elections empowered Shias and Kurds for the first time and sidelined Sunnis once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

Militants, driving cars and blending in with the population, can strike without detection by security forces, who themselves have lost hundreds of comrades in the attacks.

al-Qaeda's Iraq wing, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, boasted that the attacks had given it control of the capital, but there was no sign of militants in the streets.

"Through the day and the night, Baghdad rang with the music of the Mujahideen's bullets and the prayers of the martyrs," it said in an Internet statement.

"Our Mujahideen now control the streets," it said. "Our sheikh Abu Musab has urged us to intensify our attacks until America is defeated ... and we will continue in our jihad."