SUICIDE TRUCK BOMBER

At least eight bombs struck the capital, mostly in Shi'ite districts, killing 40 people and wounding 88, police and medics said.

A car bomb in Dujail, a Shi'ite town 50 km (31 miles) north of Baghdad, killed three people and wounded seven.

The bombings followed attacks that cost at least 24 lives the day before, as well as coordinated assaults by militants on a highway bridge and police station near Falluja.

A suicide bomber in an explosives-laden fuel tanker blew it up under the bridge near the town of Saqlawiya, about 10 km (six miles) north of Falluja, causing the bridge to collapse and destroying one of two army tanks parked on top, police said. Gunmen then attacked and destroyed the second tank.

Simultaneously, dozens of militants stormed a police station in Saqlawiya, whose occupants surrendered. Helicopter gunships attacked the police station, but failed to evict the militants.

The gunmen withdrew towards Falluja on Wednesday, making use of a corridor the army had left for civilians. Troops and tanks then retook the police station, turning it into an army base, and civilians living nearby fled towards Falluja, police said.

The wrecked bridge spans the main highway leading west from Baghdad across the vast Sunni desert province of Anbar towards Syria and Jordan. Police said the truck bomber had driven from Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar.