BAGHDAD, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomber struck a police checkpoint in the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad on Monday, killing three people and wounding eight others, a local police source said.

    The attacker targeted the police checkpoint at the northern entrance of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Two policemen were among the deaths and five others were among the wounded, the source said. The blast also damaged several nearby houses, shops and civilian cars.

    The attack came a day after a car bomb explosion at a crowded marketplace in the town of Haditha, in the farther west of Anbar province, killing seven people and wounding 20 others.

    Anbar province is part of what so-called Sunni Triangle which had been a main stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq network, since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

    The province has been calm for nearly two years after local Sunni tribes allied with U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces, turning their rifles against al-Qaida militants who were accused of adopting hard line of Islam, killing thousands of Iraqis indiscriminately.