Two suicide car bombs exploded inside a police academy compound in the town of Tikrit yesterday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens, Iraqi police and doctors said.

Earlier bombs have killed a US sailor and soldier west of Baghdad, the US military said.

The sailor was killed by a bomb during combat operations on Saturday in Falluja, about 45km west of Baghdad, the military said yesterday.

The soldier was killed Saturday when a bomb exploded near a military convoy near al Haswah, west of Baghdad, the military said in a statement late Saturday.

"A soldier assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed today when an improvised explosive device detonated near the convoy in which he was travelling," a statement said.

Both were assigned to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.

A suicide bomber drove into the compound and blew up his vehicle among a crowd of policemen, killing several, according to accounts provided by witnesses to a reporter working for Reuters.

As police and passers-by rushed to help those hit in the blast, a second car bomber entered the compound and detonated his vehicle, the witnesses said.

A doctor at Tikrit's hospital, Mohammed Ayash, said seven bodies had been brought in and as many as 26 people were wounded. All those killed were police, while both civilians and police were among the wounded.

In other violence, Associated Press Television News cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was shot and killed when gunfire broke out after an explosion in the northern city of Mosul, 360km northwest of Baghdad.

AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim, no relation to the dead man, suffered shrapnel wounds in the same incident. While at the hospital, Mohammed Ibrahim was escorted away by US forces along with his brother and their whereabouts could not immediately be determined. The US military said it was investigating the incident.

Tikrit, 144km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. It has seen frequent outbreaks of violence, including a car bomb blast outside the US military's headquarters in the town last week.

The bombings come amid a new wave of violence in Iraq, with a marked increase in bombings, suicide attacks, ambushes and assassinations this month.

Many of the attacks have targeted Iraqi police and soldiers, who are in the front line of the fight against the two-year-old insurgency.

More than 400 Iraqi police and soldiers have been killed over the past six weeks, according to figures from icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks deaths in Iraq.

The increase in violence threatens to overshadow the country's attempts to form a government nearly three months after its first post-Saddam elections were held.