Roadside bomb attacks in Iraq on Sunday killed at least five people, including three policemen in Fallujah, police said. The policemen died when two bombs went off outside the home of a local police captain in Fallujah, a police officer said, according to AFP
Four people were also hurt in the near simultaneous blasts in the city in western Iraq's Anbar province.
A man and his son died in a similar attack east of the central city of Baquba when a bomb struck their car, a local police officer said.
Meanwhile, American and Iraqi negotiators have ended efforts to reach a formal security pact before President George W. Bush leaves office in favour of an interim deal, the Washington Post said on Sunday, citing senior U.S. officials.
The two countries had been negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement that would provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to remain when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
But in the past week Iraqi leaders have spoken of only agreeing what they call a memorandum of understanding. Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has also raised for the first time the idea of setting a timetable for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. The Washington Post quoted one U.S. official close to the negotiations as saying "we are talking about dates", even though Bush has previously rebuffed calls for a timetable.
Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi added his support for a withdrawal timetable. "Iraqis must know when the American and other forces will leave Iraqi land. It is our right to know, and know the truth of where the situation stands, if there is an intention for American forces to leave or not," Hashemi told Iraqiya state television in an interview broadcast late on Saturday.
The Post said the "bridge" security document would be limited in both time and scope and would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue once the U.N. mandate ended.
