(RTTNews) - At least nine people have been killed and over 30 others injured in a car bomb attack on a market near the western Iraqi city of Falluja, said officials and local news reports on Tuesday.

The explosion is reported to have taken place at a popular market in the town of Amiriya, near Falluja, on Tuesday evening. The explosion has resulted in the damage nearby buildings and has destroyed several cars parked in the market.

Anbar province was earlier considered to be the hot bed of al-Qaeda insurgency in Iraq. The security situation in the province, however, improved after the introduction of U.S.-backed local anti-al-Qaeda groups known as Awakening Councils.

The once-restive province has witnessed several bombing and suicide attacks on police and Iraqi army checkpoints in the recent past. At least six people, including two policemen, were killed Monday when a suicide bomber exploded himself at a funeral in the mostly Sunni area of Haditha in Anbar province.

The recent attacks follows the withdrawal of U.S. forces from towns and cities of Iraq on 30th June, handing over responsibilities of urban security to Iraqi troops. The 130,000 combat troops of the U.S. army have since been relocated to rural bases in Iraq, some six years after the invasion. The relocation is in line with a bilateral security agreement to pullout all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Despite the drop in violence in Iraq since last year, the recent increase in attacks have raised fears that sustained violence could return to the country, especially with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities and towns.

Official figures indicate that a total of 456 people, including 393 civilians, 48 police and 15 Iraqi soldiers, were killed in Iraq in August, making it the deadliest month in over a year. It was the highest monthly toll in Iraq since July 2008, when 465 people were killed in similar attacks.

Although the incidence of violence in Iraq has fallen steeply over the past year after the introduction of Awakening Councils, the U.S. forces in Iraq believe the al-Qaeda network in Iraq to be still capable of carrying out major attacks despite having been forced out of most regions.