RAMADI: Gunmen and suicide bombers driving explosives-rigged vehicles launched a wave of coordinated attacks in Iraq’s Anbar province overnight, killing 25 police and three civilians, officials and medics said on Wednesday.

The attacks between 10:00 pm and midnight Tuesday in the west Iraq province also wounded 26 police, they said.

Militants, including those linked to Al Qaeda, frequently target Iraqi security forces and other government employees.

Four of the attacks struck targets in or near the town of Rutba, about 110 kilometres (68 miles) from the border with war-racked Syria.

A suicide bomber detonated a tanker truck packed with explosives at a federal police checkpoint east of the town, while militants armed with heavy weapons struck the police station in Rutba itself and another bomber detonated a vehicle at a police checkpoint to its west.

Those attacks killed 18 police and wounded 25, while three civilians died when another suicide bomber blew up a tanker truck on a bridge west of Rutba, the officials and a doctor said.