They detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi security force base in Taji, just north of Baghdad, yesterday killing nine people and wounding dozens in the latest attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying troops.

An Iraqi policeman and a civilian were killed and nine other officers wounded, five of them seriously on the day when a bomb exploded south of the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, police said.

Insurgents also attacked a police station in Musayyab town, south of Baghdad, on Saturday, killing at least 10 Iraqi police and two civilians in a carefully orchestrated operation.

With the formal handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi government less than four weeks away, Baghdad has seen a surge in deadly attacks in recent days.

The 15-nation UN Security Council was called into a special session yesterday amid signs that the United States is close to securing agreement on a draft UN resolution on the future of Iraq after June 30.

"A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device was detonated," US Maj Andreas Dekunpfy told Reuters on the scene of the blast at the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps base in Taji. US troops are also based nearby.

The US military said six people were killed, but hospital officials later said nine Iraqis were killed and 61 wounded.

In Kirkuk, the bomb went off in Tuz Khurmatu as a police convoy passed a checkpoint on a road frequently used by US troops, said Kirkuk police chief Colonel Abbas Mohammed Amin.

He added that it was the first attack in six months to strike the town, which has a mixed population of Kurds, Turkmen and Sunni Arabs.

The road is used regularly by US troops travelling between Kirkuk and Tikrit, where the 1st Infantry Division has its headquarters.

It was not clear whether the bombing was a suicide attack, a tactic regularly used by insurgents.

In Musayyab, guerrillas disguised as police entered the police station and forced policemen into a cell at gunpoint before planting explosives.

When locals tried to free the police, the explosives were detonated, witnesses said.