RAMADI, Iraq, Dec. 27, 2010 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed and some 40 others were wounded in twin suicide bomb attacks outside government buildings in the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western Anbar province on Monday, a provincial police source said.

"Our latest report said that nine people including five policemen, were killed and 40 people, nine policemen among them, were wounded by the coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Anbar's capital city of Ramadi," the source from Anbar's operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attacks took place Monday morning when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a checkpoint at the entrance of a government complex in central Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, the source said.

Almost simultaneously, another suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up outside a government bank and a nearby court house, close to the site of the first attack, the source added.

Earlier, the source put the toll at six killed and 18 wounded by the two attacks.

Insurgent attacks continue in the once volatile Sunni Arab area in west of Baghdad that stretches through Anbar province to Iraq's western borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The cities in the province and its vast desert area have been relatively calm for more than three years after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turned to cooperate with U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces against al-Qaida network in Iraq.