"At least 27 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in the attack," said an officer, specifying that another 30 were wounded.

He said the bomber was targeting a police station, but blew himself up "200 metres (yards) away from it near the residential area of Al-Tamim."

The explosion occurred next to a market and residential buildings, he said.

"The truck contained many tonnes of chlorine and TNT which were covered by sacks full of fertilisers," he said.

A nearby residential building was also partially damaged by the explosion.

Earlier police Colonel Tark al-Dualiami told AFP that two of the dead were policemen, adding that at least another two police officers were wounded.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of the Sunni Anbar province, is a stronghold of Sunni insurgents and a prime base of al-Qaeda operators.

In the past few months, insurgents have been using chlorine bombs to attack security forces and civilians in the province.

Earlier US military announced the deaths of two more soldiers in Iraq in separate attacks.

One soldier was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in the restive Diyala province, north of Baghdad, on Thursday, the military said.

A second soldier was killed and another wounded in a gun attack in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk on the same day, a separate statement said.

The latest fatalities brought the US military's losses in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 3,263, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

The soldier died on Thursday when the bomb exploded near his vehicle.

The latest fatality brought the military's losses in Iraq since the invasion to 3,262, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

The US radio station Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty announced Thursday that one of its Iraqi correspondents had been found shot dead in Baghdad.

"Iraqi journalist Khamail Khalaf, a reporter for Radio Free Iraq, the Arabic language service of RFE/RL in Iraq, was found dead in western Baghdad on April 5, 2007," said the statement.

Iraqi officials had told the station that she had been shot in the head and that there were wounds to her body, said the statement.

She had last been seen on Tuesday. Khamail had already received threats in the past, said the statement.

She had been reporting for the station since 2004 on social and cultural life in Iraq.

Also Thursday, a senior Iraqi journalist was killed when a suicide truck bomb exploded outside a television channel's headquarters in Baghdad, the leading Sunni political party that owns the network said.

Deputy bureau chief Thaer Ahmed Jabr died after a suicide car bomb attack followed by a gun attack on the offices, said a statement from the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Another 12 employees of the 24-hour television channel were wounded, some of them seriously, it added.