Deadly Car Bombs Strike in Algeria, Iraq

A car loaded with explosives and headed for a police station in northern Algeria exploded yesterday after officers stopped the attack with bullets. At least two people were killed and 23 wounded, the Interior Ministry said.

Witnesses and security officials said at least three people were killed. Officers opened fire on a vehicle that was speeding toward the local police station in the town of Thenia, some 40 miles east of Algiers. The vehicle exploded short of the building, leaving a 6 1/2-foot-wide crater.

In other news, a suicide car bomber targeted an American patrol yesterday in Mosul, killing at least one Iraqi and wounding as many as 15, the military and police said, a day after a roadside bomb killed five American soldiers in the increasingly lawless northern city. At an American base outside Mosul, scores of American troops and an honor guard stood at attention as five coffins of their slain comrades were loaded onto a plane for the journey home.