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SAMARRA, IRAQ, September 09 (AFP) - A suicide bomber slammed his explosives-filled truck into the police station of the central Iraqi town of Dujail on Friday, killing at least 28 people, officials said. The attack occurred at around 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) in the Shiite town in the Sunni province of Salaheddin, north of Baghdad, just minutes before people were getting ready to break their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. An interior ministry official in Baghdad and a police officer from Tikrit, the capital of Salaheddin, said around 40 people were also wounded. A defence ministry official in Baghdad also confirmed the attack. The police officer said the station was surrounded by tall concrete walls and that the bomber had been unable to break through into the interior. But the impact of the explosion damaged the police station and some of the victims were policemen, he added. Dujail, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Baghdad, was the site of an assassination attempt on executed dictator Saddam Hussein in 1982. Saddam was executed in December 2006 after an Iraqi court found him guilty of ordering the killing of more than 140 Shiites suspected of planning his assassination in Dujail .

A US soldier of the 320th Military Police Company looks on as an Iraqi policeman mans a checkpoint in the western districts of the city of Tikrit, some 180 kms north of Baghdad. A suicide bomber slammed his explosives-filled truck into the police station of the central Iraqi town of Dujail on Friday, killing at least 28 people, officials said.

The attack was the second biggest in less than three weeks and comes at a time when the violence in Iraq is at a four-year low. The last major suicide attack occurred on August 26, when a bomber thwarted a security check at a police recruiting centre in Jalawla and blew himself up, killing at least 25 young people. Jalawla is in Diyala province, considered to be one of the most dangerous in Iraq. Friday`s attack carried carried the hallmark of Al-Qaeda, which has been blamed for such spectacular attacks by the US military in the past. On Thursday, US General David Petraeus, head of the coalition forces in Iraq, said that the jihadist group had been "damaged, degraded and is on the run" but still not defeated. He said it was still capable of launching "lethal, sensational, dangerous and barbaric attacks. Al-Qaeda remains dangerous and very adaptive." The group continues to remain active in the restive provinces of Diyala, Nineveh and Salaheddin. Nineveh`s capital, Mosul, is said to be the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda after its fighters were driven out of Baghdad, and to some extent from Diyala and Salaheddin .

An Iraqi police officer watches an armored vehicle belonging to the 320th Military Police Company on patrol on the outskirts of the city of Tikrit, some 180 kms north of Baghdad. A suicide bomber slammed his explosives-filled truck into the police station of the central Iraqi town of Dujail on Friday, killing at least 28 people, officials said.

A series of massive US and Iraqi assaults have been carried out in these provinces targetting the jihadists. But the group, which the US military believes is largely led by foreign fighters, continues to carry out attacks. US and Iraqi forces are currently engaged in such assaults in Nineveh and Diyala and in some parts of Salaheddin. On the back of these assaults, the violence in Iraq has fallen significantly in the past few months and, especially, since the middle of last year.