Car bombs explode outside US bases in Iraq--police

RAMADI, Dec 15 (Reuters) Two suicide car bombers exploded today outside two U.S. bases in central Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's volatile Anbar province, Iraqi police said.

Captain Ahmed Ali said he had no word on any injuries. Ali said one bomber, driving a truck, rammed the gates of a former government building that now houses US troops. A second, driving a car, attacked a US base in a former football club.

The US military said it was checking the report.

US forces have struggled to contain violence in Ramadi and take back the city from Sunni insurgents. Most US deaths in Iraq occur in Anbar province, heartland of the insurgency.

Ali said the car bombings followed clashes between US forces and gunmen in central Ramadi earlier in the day.

One resident, who did not want to be named, said US forces had sealed off al-Sufiya district in the west of the city after American reinforcements were hit by a roadside bomb. It was not immediately possible to confirm the report.

REUTERS SY KN1913