At least 15 people have been killed and over 145 people, including school children, injured in two suicide car-bomb attacks in the western Iraqi city of Falluja.

A senior police officer said that the blasts on Thursday were caused by explosives-laden lorries that were detonated near the concrete barriers surrounding two separate police stations.

The children were hurt when a school near one of the posts collapsed following the explosion, an interior ministry official said.

The first bomb exploded near the Tawhid police station close to a school, while the second blast occured in the north of the city, also near an Iraqi police facility.

Falluja is one of the main cities in Anbar province, which was the centre of the Sunni-led fight against US forces in the months following America's March 2003 invasion.

Also on Thursday, two US soldiers were killed and nine Iraqi's wounded in a suicide car bombing in the northern city of Mosul.

Elsewhere in northern Iraq, four fighters were killed and 32 detained in US operations targeting al-Qaeda in the north of the country, the US military said.

The largest raid occurred in the disputed city of Kirkuk.

US ground forces came under fire while surrounding a building where a targeted al-Qaeda courier was believed to be hiding and killed those firing at them, the military said.

They also said that 16 other people suspected of links to al-Qaeda were detained in an earlier raid.