Baghdad  - Four people were killed, including two policemen and nine injured Tuesday in a car bomb blast in the western Iraqi Anbar province, security sources said.

The car was parked in the industrial zone in al-saqalawiya when it exploded, sources added.

Anbar's capital al-Ramadi and nearby Falluja, in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, were formerly the scene of some of the worst fighting between Sunni insurgents and Iraqi and US forces in the area.

The worst of the fighting subsided after 2006, when Iraqi and US forces enticed some former insurgents to join government-allied Sahwa, or "Awakening," militias with promises of weapons, money, training and jobs in the interior ministry.

The western province, the largest in Iraq geographically, shares borders with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Its security control was transferred from US to Iraqi security forces in September 2008.