A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle outside a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday, killing at least five people and wounding 50 others, police and doctors said.

Witnesses said the Toyota Landcruiser raced towards a police checkpoint as guards screamed at the driver to stop. When he did not, they opened fire, killing him, but the car ploughed on and detonated about 20 metres (60 feet) from the police station.

?I was waiting for a taxi when the car approached at high speed?, said witness Younis al-Hadidi, 32 years old. ?It blew up in the middle of everyone.? A police lieutenant said the five killed were police officers and the wounded were a mix of civilians and police. Doctors said they expected the death toll to rise and said many of the 50 wounded were badly hurt.

Safe haven for guerillas

The bombing came four days after a similar attack outside a police recruiting centre in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, which killed 70 people. Police are frequently targeted by militants who regarded them as collaborators with US forces.

Yesterday?s attack followed another night of clashes between US forces and guerrillas in the rebellious city of Falluja, west of Baghdad, in which at least 10 Iraqis died and 35 were wounded, a doctor at the main hospital said.

There has been heavy fighting in and around Falluja in recent days, with US marines backed by tanks and aircraft targeting particularly restive neighbourhoods.

The marines tried to take over the city in April but withdrew after several weeks of bloody fighting. An Iraqi force is now responsible for Falluja?s security but US officials say it has become a safe haven for guerrillas and kidnappers.

In recent days, the US military has carried out air strikes in Falluja, targeting houses thought to have been used by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Washington believes is allied to al-Qaeda.

On Saturday, militants purportedly led by Zarqawi said they had kidnapped two truck drivers and would behead them in 48 hours unless their Turkish company quit the country.

The kidnapping was the latest in a growing wave of hostage-taking that has hit Iraq since April as guerrillas wage a campaign to undermine US-led forces and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi?s interim government.

Al Jazeera television screened a video tape showing the two drivers in front of a group of masked gunmen and said the militants had vowed to behead the hostages unless their firm stopped supplying the US military in Iraq and quit the country completely.

A banner in the background bore the name of the Tawhid and Jihad group led by Zarqawi, who is the US military?s most wanted man with a $25 million bounty on his head.

Al Jazeera named the two hostages as Abdulrahman Damir and Saeed Anwar but did not give their nationalities.

Dozens of foreign hostages have been seized in the past few months, most of them truck drivers working for foreign companies delivering supplies to US forces or Iraqi firms. At least eight hostages have been killed, four by beheading.

?Positive talks?

On Saturday, the Iraqi government said it was in talks with several companies to try to get them to employ Iraqis rather than foreigners as drivers in an effort to stem the tide of kidnappings.

Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaymi, head of a major Iraqi tribal group, said he was asking for patience from the kidnappers, the Black Banners brigade of the Islamic Secret Army. A source said earlier the Kuwaiti firm had agreed to a demand to cease work in Iraq.

But the firm told Dulaymi another demand ? the release of Iraqi prisoners in Kuwait ? was impossible to achieve.

The hostage crisis, which has led at least one nation ? the Philippines ? to withdraw its forces from Iraq, has piled pressure on Allawi?s government as it tries to steadily take more responsibility for its own security.

At the same time, Allawi is desperately trying to speed up reconstruction of his battered country amid evidence that only about $ 500 million of the $ 18.6 billion the United States has set aside for Iraq?s rebuilding has so far been disbursed.

<B>Luke BAKER</B>

TERRORISM

<B>India says Iraqi militants extend hostage deadline</B>

Iraqi militants holding seven foreign drivers hostage, including three Indians, have extended a deadline to kill one of them until yesterday evening, India?s junior foreign minister, Ahamed said. The new information was given by the Kuwaiti employers of the drivers following talks on Saturday with an Iraqi mediator to win the release of the drivers, Ahamed said. The talks were expected to resume yesterday and the mediator, Sheikh Hisham al-Dulyami, head of a major Iraqi tribal group, said he expected a deal could be reached.

Villagers in Una in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, the hometown of Antaryami, one of the hostages, welcomed the news by lifting road blockades that had paralysed traffic in the area for the last three days. The kidnappers released a videotape on Thursday showing a masked man pointing an automatic rifle at Antaryami, sparking unrest in Una as protesters smashed vehicles, and enforced a strike. Three Kenyans and an Egyptian are among the hostages of an Iraqi group that calls itself the ?Black Banners? brigade of the Islamic Secret Army. The militants want the Kuwaiti employer of the seven drivers to stop doing business in Iraq. They also want financial compensation for the victims of fighting and air strikes in the city of Falluja. A source at the talks said the Kuwaiti firm had agreed to cease work in Iraq. India has no troops in Iraq but an estimated 5 000 Indians had gone there before New Delhi banned recruitment of its nationals to work in the war-torn country and imposed travel restrictions. Most Indians in Iraq work as support staff, including chefs, kitchen assistants, accountants and drivers for the US military.

<B>Y.P. RAJESH</B>