FALLUJAH, Iraq - Insurgents with two chlorine truck bombs attacked a local government building in Fallujah in western Iraq on Wednesday, the latest in a string of attacks using the poisonous gas, the U.S. military said.

Fifteen Iraqi and U.S. soldiers were wounded in the blasts and many more suffered chlorine poisoning, the statement said.

“Numerous Iraqi soldiers and policemen are being treated for symptoms such as labored breathing, nausea, skin irritation and vomiting that are synonymous with chlorine inhalation,” a U.S. statement said.

It said no Iraqi or U.S. forces were killed in what it called a “complex attack” using mortars and small arms as well as the truck bombs.

Chlorine gas was widely used in World War I but its use in insurgent attacks in Iraq has particular resonance there. Saddam Hussein attacked Kurdish areas with chemical weapons in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

Earlier Iraqi police said two car bombs exploded near an Iraqi checkpoint outside a U.S. military base in Fallujah, killing eight Iraqi soldiers.

Revenge killings

Meantime, police and hospital officials said off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there on Wednesday, killing at least 45 men.

The policemen began roaming the town’s Sunni neighborhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes.

A senior hospital official in Tal Afar said at least 45 men ages 15 to 60 were killed and four others were wounded.

Other tolls were higher. “Between 50 and 55 people were killed. I-ve never seen such a thing in my life,” said a doctor, who refused to be named because he said he feared for his life.

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