BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Attackers gunned down a police officer Saturday in Kirkuk, then bombed a funeral procession carrying his corpse, killing three other policemen and wounding two, officials said.

The attackers sprayed automatic-weapons fire from a vehicle, killing the policeman as he made his way to the station house early Saturday, police Capt. Ahmed Shinrani said. Hours later, a roadside bomb hit mourners and security forces transporting the corpse for burial.

“This is a criminal act. The mourners were doing a religious duty. I don’t understand how someone could blast a funeral,” wailed Allaa Talaban, sister of one of the officers killed in the blast in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city 180 miles north of Baghdad.

Assailants in Baghdad also killed police Commissioner Ahmed Ali Kadim as he traveled to his office in the Doura neighborhood of the capital, said Falah Al-Mohammadawi, an investigator in the precinct.

The Sunni Arab-led insurgency that has grown since the ouster of Saddam Hussein routinely attacks U.S. and other international troops as well as Iraqi security forces and officials they consider to be collaborators with the Americans.

The violence continues two years after President Bush ordered military strikes on March 19, 2003. The anniversary falls on March 20 in Iraq, because of the time difference.

Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets in cities across Europe on Saturday. But the rallies were nowhere near as big as those held in February 2003, when millions marched in cities around the world to urge Bush not to attack Iraq.

Protesters also found themselves divided over what to demand from leaders now, with some calling for a full withdrawal of foreign troops and others arguing that that would leave Iraqis in a worse position.

“We got the Iraqis into this mess, we need to help them out of it,” said Kit MacLean, 29, in London, where an estimated 45,000 people marched from Hyde Park past the American Embassy and on to Trafalgar Square.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a series of blasts sent smoke up from the banks of the Tigris River, a few yards outside the heavily fortified Green Zone. Cobra attack helicopters flashed overhead.

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb, targeting a U.S. military patrol on a highway northwest of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad in the restive region known as the Sunni Triangle, Iraqi police Sgt. Laith Ismael said.

The car bomb “detonated prematurely, before it could reach the patrol,” the U.S. military said in a statement. No casualties were reported.

Iraqis kept up protests Saturday against a Jordanian man they believe carried out a suicide bombing that killed 125 people in Hillah on Feb. 28. “No, no to terrorism,” chanted about 200 people in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The Jordanian daily Al-Ghad had reported that the man, Raed Mansour al-Banna, carried out the attack, the single deadliest of the Iraqi insurgency. The paper later issued a correction, however, saying it was not known where in Iraq al-Banna carried out an assault.

Al-Banna’s family has denied his involvement in the Hillah attack, saying he was killed while carrying out a suicide bombing in Mosul.

More than 2,000 Shiite demonstrators marched through Baghdad on Friday, raising the Iraqi flag over Jordan’s Embassy and demanding an apology from the Jordanian government.

On Wednesday, the leader of the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance claimed during Iraq’s first National Assembly meeting that neighboring Jordan wasn’t doing enough to prevent terrorists from slipping into Iraq.

A number of Iraqi politicians, including interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, have demanded explanations from the Jordanian government.

The leader of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, which won the most votes in Jan. 30 elections, also claimed Wednesday that Jordan wasn’t doing enough to prevent terrorists from slipping across the border into Iraq.

Jordanian government spokeswoman Asma Khader condemned terrorism and stressed her country’s solidarity with the Iraqi people.

“The government condemns strongly any attack against the Iraqi people, in particular the hideous massacre of Hillah which killed scores of innocent people,” Khader said. “We have put intensive measures to track those terrorists and there is security coordination with Iraq to protect the borders of both countries.”

AP-ES-03-19-05 1031EST