Two bombs exploded as a police patrol passed through the centre of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, on Tuesday, killing two policemen, police and medical officials said.
Another policeman was wounded in the attack, which struck at around 9:15 pm (1815 GMT) in the city, hometown of now executed dictator Saddam Hussein, Salaheddin provincial police said in a statement issued to journalists.
A doctor at Tikrit's main hospital confirmed that two policemen were killed and one was wounded.
Although no group claimed responsibility for the attack in its immediate aftermath, Al-Qaeda's offshoot in Iraq has vowed to carry out revenge attacks after the May 2 killing of its leader Osama bin Laden in a US raid in Pakistan.
On Saturday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said during a visit to Tunisia that Al-Qaeda was "still present in Iraq and pursues its operations in the country, so its revenge after the assassination of bin Laden is likely."
Tuesday's attack came little more than a month after a March 29 Al-Qaeda raid on the city's provincial council offices, that led to an hours-long gun battle with security forces which left 58 people dead.
Tikrit remains volatile. In mid-January, a suicide bomber killed 50 people in a crowd waiting outside a police recruitment centre, in the first major strike in Iraq since the formation of a new government on December 21.
Violence in Iraq is down from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common. A total of 211 people died in April as a result of violence, according to official figures.
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