10 people die as car bomb shakes city

In other violence, rockets hit homes and oil pipelines were damaged.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Attackers detonated a car bomb near police and government buildings in the western city of Haditha today, killing 10 Iraqis, including three police officers, in the latest in a series of insurgent attacks on Iraqi authorities.
Police apparently thwarted a second attack in Karbala, where police chased a car after receiving a tip it was filled with explosives. The two people inside detonated their bomb, killing only themselves and causing no other casualties.
The violence came a day after a suicide attacker in Baghdad killed at least 10 people in a car bombing near Iraqi government headquarters and insurgents assassinated a provincial governor in an ambush of his convoy.
The attack in Haditha, known as a stronghold of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, hit a government complex that houses the police station, civil defense headquarters and the municipal building. In addition to the 10 killed, the blast wounded 27 people, said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Police and government officials have repeatedly been targeted by insurgents, who view them as lackeys of U.S. forces here.
The violent insurgency that has wracked the country since the fall of Saddam's regime 15 months ago has continued since U.S. forces handed power over to Iraq's interim government.
Insurgents detonated a massive car bomb Wednesday at a checkpoint just outside the so-called Green Zone, former home to the U.S. occupation government and currently home to the Iraqi interim government and the U.S. and British embassies.
The blast ripped a deep crater in the road and killed 10 Iraqis, many as they waited in line to apply for jobs with the government, the Health Ministry said. The U.S. military said 11 were killed.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the bombing was retaliation for the government's arrests of terror suspects.
Governor assassinated
Hours later, insurgents tossed hand grenades and fired machine guns at a convoy transporting Nineveh Gov. Osama Youssef Kashmoula, killing him and two of his guards, Iraqi and U.S. military officials said. Mosul is the largest city in Nineveh province.
Kashmoula was attacked between the cities of Beiji and Tikrit, north of Baghdad, as he traveled to the capital, the U.S. military said. Four of the attackers were killed in the fight, Mosul officials said.
In the attack just outside Karbala today, police chased down insurgents after getting a tip they had a car bomb, said Rahman Mshawi, a spokesman for the Karbala police. "Finding themselves surrounded, the two persons inside detonated the car," Mshawi said.
In a separate attack early today, a rocket landed on a home in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing four people and wounding three others, police and hospital officials said.
A second rocket also struck a home in a former army base now used by Kurdish refugees, injuring four people. The targets of the attacks were not immediately clear.
Also today, saboteurs damaged oil pipelines at separate sites in Iraq's north and south while insurgents gunned down an officer with the state-run oil company. The attacks did not cut exports.
Marine is moved
Meanwhile, a U.S. Marine who disappeared in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon three weeks later left Germany today after six days of debriefing and evaluation in a U.S. military hospital, a Ramstein Air Base spokeswoman said.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun took off from Ramstein on a morning flight aboard an Air Force C-5 Galaxy heavy transport jet for Dover, Del., a day after he was originally scheduled to depart, base spokeswoman Petra Day said.
He will be taken to the Marine base at Quantico, Va., where the Pentagon's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency will handle the rest of his repatriation, according to the Marine Corps.
As he departed the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on Wednesday, Hassoun said he was eager to get home.
"I am in good health and spirits, I look forward to my return home to friends and family," he said in a written statement provided to The Associated Press, his first public comment since he vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Hassoun was flown to Germany Friday after reappearing July 8 at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. It remains unclear how he made the journey to Lebanon from Iraq.
"All thanks and praises are due to God for my safety," he said. "I am also very thankful for all the kind wishes, support and praise for me and my family from my fellow Marines, all the people in the United States, Lebanon and around the world."
Hassoun signed the statement "Semper Fidelis," the Marine Corps motto meaning "always faithful."
Reports conflict
During the three weeks he was missing, various conflicting reports emerged about Hassoun -- first that he was kidnapped and beheaded, then that he was alive. There were suggestions it was all a hoax.
Hassoun's debriefing at Landstuhl was designed to help U.S. military specialists learn any lessons about the circumstances of his disappearance that could help others who find themselves in similar situations.
The U.S. Navy has said it is investigating whether the kidnapping might have been a hoax, but the Naval Criminal Investigation Service is not expected to question Hassoun until his repatriation procedure is completed, the Marine Corps said.