A suicide bomber in a wheelchair killed a top policeman and wounded two others when he blew himself up in the police operations centre in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday, police said.

The bomber had entered the building in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, and asked to speak to assistant police chief Major-General Abdul-Jabbar Rabee Muttar, said Captain Luay Mohammed, an official in the Samarra police chief's office.

Major Muthanna Mohammed of Salahuddin provincial police said the bomber, in his 40s, then detonated a vest packed with explosives, killing Muttar and wounding two other policemen.