Police car damaged in suicide car bomb attack is seen in front of  courthouse in Ramadi, 21 Nov 2007

Iraqi officials say six people have been killed and several wounded in a suicide car bomb blast in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province.

Police said guards opened fire, but the attacker still managed to drive into the parking area of a courthouse compound and detonate the explosives.

The number of attacks in Anbar province has sharply declined since Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs joined forces with the U.S. military to drive insurgents from the region, which was once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

In other news, the U.S. military says a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed Tuesday in Baghdad by a sophisticated armor-piercing bomb.

Also, the British Defense Ministry confirmed two British soldiers were killed and 12 others wounded in a helicopter crash near Baghdad Tuesday.

The U.S. military said earlier the helicopter was not brought down by hostile fire.

In other developments, Iraqi troops found six decomposing bodies buried in the yards of abandoned homes in the Saydiyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

Also, the U.S. military says Iraqi forces, assisted by coalition troops, detained 81 suspected extremists and confiscated several weapons caches in Diwaniyah in operations from Saturday to Monday. 

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.