Insurgents bombed an Iraqi oil pipeline south of Baghdad, and a car bomb and a shooting in the capital killed two Iraqi policemen and the driver of bus carrying government employees to work on Monday, police said.

Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers secure the site following a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Monday, May 8, 2006. A car bomb exploded near a police patrol on Palestine street in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding 12 Iraqis. [AP]

New information also emerged about a bomb-making factory hidden in the basement of a religious school near a major Sunni shrine in Baghdad that had exploded on Sunday, killing one insurgent and wounding two, police said.

Meanwhile, Australia, a member of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, announced that it will send additional soldiers to southern Iraq to replace forces protecting a Japanese military reconstruction team in the region.

The bombing of the pipeline occurred late Sunday near Mussayab city, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, sending up a large plume of black smoke. The pipeline carries oil from Dora refinery in Baghdad to Mussayab power station, and police Col. Ahmed Mijwal said the attack had closed the station.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol on Palestine street in eastern Baghdad on Monday morning, killing two policemen and wounding 12 Iraqis: five policemen and seven civilians, said police Lt. Ahmed Qassim.

In western Baghdad, suspected insurgents stopped a bus carrying Higher Education Ministry employees to work, fatally shooting the driver and wounding a policeman who was working on the bus as a guard, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

Insurgents often try to prevent Iraqi citizens from cooperating with their country's new democratically elected government and its defense forces by attacking government workers and killing men who have been recruited to Iraq's military and police forces.

On Sunday the U.S. military reported that one suspected insurgent was killed and one wounded that day when their bomb-making factory exploded in the basement of one of Baghdad's two more important Sunni Arab shrines.

But the U.S. command and Iraqi forces said Monday that their investigation found one insurgent died and two were wounded in the basement of the partially built al-Qadiriya religious school next door to the shrine when the roadside bombs they were making exploded.

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