Ramadi (Iraq): At least 38 people were killed in two massive bomb attacks in Iraq today, 20 of them dying at the hands of a suicide bomber as they held an anti-Qaeda meet, officials said.

The bomber blew himself up in a municipal office in western Iraq's Anbar province, killing the local mayor and at least 19 senior members of an anti-Qaeda front, according to Iraqi officials.

The attack, in which more than 20 people were also wounded, took place in the town of Garma, near the former Sunni rebel bastion of Fallujah, the Fallujah town council spokesman Kamal al-Ayash told AFP.

Ayash said the bomber detonated his explosive vest in the office of mayor Kamal al-Abdali as he was huddled in a meeting with members of an anti-Qaeda "Awakening" group around 1430 IST.

A security official in the defence ministry confirmed that at least 20 people were killed and 20 more were wounded in the attack.

The violence in Garma came just days before Anbar province, once a hotbed of Sunni militancy, was due to be transferred by the US military to the control of Iraqi security forces.

A car bomb, meanwhile, ripped through northern Iraq s restive city of Mosul, killing 18,Iraqi and US officials said.

The US military said initial reports indicated that 17 Iraqi civilians and a policeman were killed, while 71 civilians and nine policemen were wounded in the car bomb attack.

An Iraqi police officer, who asked he not to be named, said insurgents first fired several rockets into the Bab al-Tob market in the centre of Mosul at around 1530 IST.

Source : PTI