BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the central city of Ramadi, killing 11 Iraqi policemen and wounding 14 other people including two U.S. Army soldiers, the U.S. military said today.

In eastern Baghdad, unidentified attackers killed five female translators working for the U.S. military late Thursday, said Iraqi police Capt. Ahmed Aboud.

The translators "were heading home when gunmen driving two cars sprayed them with machine-gun fire," Aboud said. Further details weren't immediately available.

The blast in Ramadi happened Thursday evening at a checkpoint on the eastern outskirts of the Sunni Triangle city 70 miles west of Baghdad. Nine Iraqi security forces and three civilians were among the wounded, U.S. Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool told The Associated Press. The attacker also died.

Insurgents routinely target U.S. forces and their perceived collaborators as well as members of Iraq's government, army and police - security forces the U.S. military says must gain better control of the strife-torn country before any major U.S. troop withdrawal.

Police found two decapitated bodies clad in Iraqi army uniforms north of Baghdad, officials said.

The headless corpses were lying on the side of a road between Baghdad and the town of Abu Ghraib when a passing police patrol discovered them Thursday and brought them to a nearby morgue, 1st Lt. Akram Al-Zubaai said today.

Also near Abu Ghraib, firefighters worked today to extinguish an oil-pipeline blaze ignited by insurgents' bombs, said Zubaai, the police official. The conduit connects Iraq's northern oil fields with a Baghdad-area refinery.

On Thursday, hundreds of power workers shouting "No, no, to terror!" marched through Baghdad to protest attacks that have killed dozens of their colleagues, while demonstrators in the south demanded that the new petroleum minister be appointed from their oil-rich region.

Some oil workers threatened to disrupt production in the south.

"We will stop pumping the oil and go on strike for those working in the oil field and the ports if our demands aren't met," said Mohammed Abdul Hafez, a union official who was one of the demonstration's organizers.

The demonstrations came as negotiators for the two biggest factions in the new National Assembly worked out details of an Iraqi government that U.S. officials hope will pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces.

Jawad al-Maliki, a negotiator from the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, said talks had progressed enough for Shiite Arab and ethnic Kurd officials to agree to hold parliament's second session early next week, although no date had been set. The 275-seat National Assembly met March 16 to swear in its members.

The prime minister is expected to be Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a politician from Iraq's Shiite Arab majority. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is likely to be named president.

One of the vice presidents will likely be a Sunni Arab.

The move is an effort to reach out to the Sunni community, which is believed to be the backbone of the insurgency.