Two suicide car bombers rammed their vehicles into a Baghdad police station today, killing 12 people in one of the worst attacks against Iraq's security forces since a security crackdown was launched in the city.
The bombings in the mostly Shi'ite al-Bayaa neighbourhood in southwestern Baghdad wounded 95, police said.
Most of the dead were police while a large number of civilians were among the wounded, police said. The blasts damaged the police station and also largely destroyed a garage next door, collapsing rubble onto a dozen cars.
"Look at the situation Iraqis are living in. You see blasts whenever you try to go out to earn a living," said one witness.
US and Iraqi forces have poured thousands of extra troops into Baghdad over the past two months in an attempt to halt Iraq's slide into all-out civil war between majority Shia and minority Sunni Arabs.
While the boost in troop levels has reduced killings by sectarian death squads, car bomb attacks still plague the city. A wave of car bombs killed nearly 200 people last Wednesday.
The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said in remarks published today that the troop build-up had yielded modest progress but a rise in suicide bombings made the ultimate success of the crackdown uncertain.
Petraeus and other senior US officers in Iraq told The Washington Post the increase in US and Iraqi troops had improved security in Baghdad and restive western Anbar province but that attacks had risen sharply in other regions.
"We have certainly pulled neighbourhoods back from the brink," Gen Petraeus was quoted as saying.
But the commanders said the increase in suicide bomb attacks was troubling because of the danger of reigniting sectarian revenge killings and undermining the government of Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
"I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs," Gen Petraeus said. "Iraq is going to have to learn -- as did, say, Northern Ireland, to live with some degree of sensational attacks."