AFP - Car bombers killed at least 19 people in a former rebel bastion on Thursday as Iraq's security pact with Washington won final approval before it takes effect at the end of the month.
   
The presidential council gave its blessing to the landmark pact, which requires that all US troops withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011 and was made possible in part by dramatic improvements in security over the past year.
   
But at least 19 people were killed and dozens wounded in two suicide car bombings targeting Iraqi police posts in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah on Thursday in a brutal reminder of the country's lingering violence.
   
Twelve of those killed were police officers, and another 43 people were injured, according to the Fallujah police, who corrected a higher toll of wounded given by the interior ministry.
   
One of the attacks targeted a police station that was formerly a schoolhouse in a crowded residential area, causing several houses to collapse on the people inside.
   
Salman Salem had left to go shopping for new clothes for his children ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha just before the bomb went off. He heard the blast, saw the smoke, and returned to find that his house had collapsed.
   
"I stood there with the clothes in my hands and thought I would never see my family again," he said. "I later found out that one of my children died and the other two, along with my wife, were wounded."
   
Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Baghdad, is one of the main cities in the western province of Anbar, which was the epicentre of the Sunni-led rebellion against US forces in the months following the March 2003 invasion.
   
The city was virtually razed in 2004 in one of the biggest assaults launched by US forces, but on September 1 of this year Iraqi forces took control of Anbar after dramatic improvements in security.
   
In Baghdad, the presidential council's approval of the security deal marked its final hurdle in terms of government or legislative endorsement.
   
But as part of the intense political bargaining that led up to parliament's approval of the so-called Status of Forces Agreement, the Iraqi government agreed to demands to hold a referendum on the accord no later than July 30.
   
The agreement, which replaces a UN mandate covering the presence of foreign forces that expires on December 31, was approved in November after months of wrangling.
   
The White House hailed the ratification, saying it put relations between the two countries on a "strong footing."
   
"They recognise that they're going to continue to need our help for the next little while," said spokeswoman Dana Perino. "But we have a path now for helping our troops get home."
   
On Wednesday, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said US commanders were considering an accelerated drawdown of US forces, softening his opposition to president-elect Barack Obama's 16-month timetable.
   
"I am less concerned about that timetable," he said, a day after Obama announced that Gates, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, had agreed to stay on at the Pentagon in a Democratic administration.
   
The accord has still drawn fire from certain quarters, including followers of the hardline Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who reject any agreement with the United States, which they consider an occupying force.
   
Despite the security gains that made the Iraq-US pact possible, Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and the ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province northeast of the capital still see near-daily attacks.
   
Two US soldiers were killed and nine Iraqis were wounded on Thursday when a suicide car bomb exploded in Mosul, the American military said.
   
And in Baquba, the provincial capital of Diyala, an explosives-laden bicycle blew up outside a cafe in the city centre, killing three people and wounding nine others, according to security officials.
   
Figures released by the ministries of interior, health and defence said 340 people were killed in November -- up from 317 the previous month. The defence ministry said most of those killed were found in communal graves.