BAGHDAD - Three suicide bombers driving chlorine-laden trucks struck in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, killing two policemen and forcing about 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops to seek treatment for exposure to the gas, the military said yesterday.

The attacks came after back-to-back bombings last month released chlorine gas, prompting the U.S. military to warn that insurgents are adopting new tactics in a campaign to spread panic.

	Advertisement

They also came less than a week after Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to the provincial capital to reach out to Sunni clan chiefs at a time when U.S. officials are increasingly optimistic about their chances of undermining tribal support for the insurgency.

Just after 4 P.M. Friday, a driver detonated explosives in a pickup truck northeast of Ramadi, wounding one U.S. service member and one Iraqi civilian, the military said in a statement.

That was followed by a similar explosion about two hours later involving a dump truck in Amiriyah, south of Fallujah, that killed two policemen and left as many as 100 local citizens showing signs of chlorine exposure, with symptoms ranging from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting, the military said.

Less than 17 kilometers away, another suicide bomber detonated a dump truck containing a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives at 7:13 P.M., also south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa tribal region, the military said. U.S. forces responded to the attack and found about 250 local civilians, including seven children, suffering from symptoms related to chlorine exposure, according to the statement.

Insurgents have staged four other chlorine attacks since January 28, when a suicide bomber driving a dump truck filled with explosives and a chlorine tank struck a quick reaction force and Iraqi police in Ramadi, killing 16 people.

The most recent attack occurred February 21 in Baghdad, killing five people and sending more than 55 to hospitals, a day after a bomb planted on a chlorine tanker left more than 150 villagers stricken near Taji, 20 kilometers north of the capital.