A car bomb on an Italian military police base in the Iraqi town of Nassiriya yesterday, killing at least 22 Italians and eight Iraqis in what appeared to be a fresh suicide attack. The attack occurred as Washington attempted to speed up the process of handing over power to an Iraqi government, although U.S. officials insist this is not an exit strategy.

Carabinieri military police officials in Rome said the Italian deaths were believed to be 11 military police and three army soldiers. Hospital officials in Nassiriya said eight Iraqis were killed.

?A truck crashed into the entrance of the military police unit, closely followed by a car which detonated,? said a spokeswoman for the British-led multinational force in southern Iraq. The bomb threw up a huge plume of dust and smoke and shattered windows hundreds of meters (yards) away. Several houses around the base were badly damaged and dozens of wounded Iraqis were admitted to hospital.

?A car bomber crashed through the compound where the Italians live,? said Aysha Abdul Wahab who lives near the base and spoke to Reuters by telephone. ?The explosions damaged a number of houses. My two daughters are injured.? Around 2,300 Italian troops are in southern Iraq, many based in Nassiriya on the banks of the Euphrates river which had been relatively calm since the war. Italian and Romanian forces in the city, part of the British-led force, have been generally well received by locals.

Bloodiest attack since August

The blast, described by Pope John Paul as a ?vile attack? against a mission of peace, was the bloodiest single attack in Iraq since August when at least 80 Iraqis were killed by a car bomb outside a mosque in Najaf.

Earlier that month, a suicide bomber killed 22 people in an attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. yesterday?s deaths were the first among non-British members of the southern multinational force in hostile fire. Last week guerrillas shot dead a Polish major serving in a separate multinational force in central Iraq.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italy would not be intimidated by the bombing. ?No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again and rebuild itself with self-government, security and freedom,? he said in a statement.

Attacks in Iraq have killed at least 155 U.S. and 12 British soldiers since major combat was declared over on May 1. A bomb attack in Baghdad on Tuesday killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two, a U.S. military statement said yesterday. The U.S. military also said a U.S. soldier was killed north of Baghdad on Tuesday evening when his vehicle drove over a bomb planted on a road. Top U.S. officials, including Iraq governor Paul Bremer who was summoned from Baghdad, held a hastily convened White House meeting on Tuesday to discuss ways to accelerate the shift from U.S. to Iraqi control, amid indications President Bush?s administration was rethinking policy.

Washington wants the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to agree a method for drawing up a constitution, which would pave the way for democratic elections and a handover of power.

The U.N. Security Council has set a December 15 deadline for the Governing Council to schedule a timetable for the political transition.

A senior U.S. official Bremer was not expected to leave his job but other officials said there was mounting friction between the U.S. governor and Washington over his resistance to accelerating the transfer of authority to Iraqis.

Jalal Talabani, an Iraqi Kurd who holds the rotating presidency of the Governing Council, said the best way forward was to install a provisional government without delay. ?I think it is very reasonable and necessary to have a provisional government before having a constitution,? Talabani told Reuters in an interview.

The Council, however, has not won wide support among Iraqis and an unelected government would be unlikely to be welcomed. (Additional reporting by Rosalind Russell, Alistair Lyon in Baghdad and Antonella Cinelli in Rome).

Khudair Majeed

solo raid

Polite Iraqi police hunt in Tikrit

• Hundreds of Iraqi police mounted house-to-house raids in Saddam Hussein?s hometown of Tikrit on yesterday, the first operation of its kind without direct U.S. military support. Shortly before sunrise, 400 newly-trained officers were dropped off by car and bus in a northern district of the town, on the banks of the Tigris river, and fanned out in a hunt for weapons, explosives and suspects behind recent attacks, including last week?s downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. ?I think the person who shot down the helicopter is living in this area, or he has friends in this area,? Major-General Hamed Muzhir, head of the Iraqi National Police in Tikrit, told reporters.

"Not anyone can shoot down a helicopter -- you need special training for that, the sort of training that someone who was with the former regime would have got." Six soldiers were killed when the Black Hawk was downed last Friday, the third attack on a U.S. helicopter in two weeks. Until Yesterday, all raids in and around Tikrit, a hotbed of anti-U.S. insurgency, have been led by U.S. forces, usually involving tanks, armoured vehicles, heavily-armed men and helicopters.

But U.S. commanders are keen to move away from that heavy handed approach and pass more responsibility for raids and other search-and-patrol operations onto local authorities. Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell, commander of the 1/22 Infantry Regiment, which has spearheaded the biggest raids in Tikrit, sees the latest initiative as a first step towards handing Iraqis complete responsibility for their own security. "This is the first time we?ve seen them take the lead on a major operation, both in planning and execution," he said, as a small group of his soldiers watched the searches from afar. "It?s pretty encouraging and a very positive step...that shows they?re taking back responsibility for this city and their country."

While the Iraqi police, mostly in uniform of light blue shirt, dark blue trousers and a Kalashnikov assault rifle in hand, seemed pleased to be leading their own raid, their methods differed from the usual U.S. approach. Choosing a 16-square-kilometre area in which to search, small teams went uncertainly from house to house, occasionally skipping one or two, and politely knocked before going in.

After a few words of welcome at one modest home, they conducted a quick search in the kitchen, under the bed and in a wardrobe before murmuring "thank yous" and leaving. "I guess we?d probably be a little more focused in our area of operation and in our methods, but they?ve got the right idea," said Russell, whose men often break down doors, shout and fire warning shots when they go raiding.

For what they make up for in civility, however, the approach of the Iraqi police is perhaps less effective than the Americans in terms of results. After five hours of searching, the raid turned up a handful of rocket-propelled grenades, a mortar and an explosive device. U.S. raids often produce dozens of RPGs, mortars, rockets and small bombs.

"To be honest, we?ve already searched a lot of these homes," said Russell, as the Iraqi policemen knocked on another gate.

Luke Baker