A suicide bomber killed eight people in the Iraqi parliament today, the deadliest strike yet in Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone.
In a challenge to a two-month-old US-Iraqi security crackdown, the bomber slipped through multiple armed checkpoints to reach the heart of the zone, a 10 sq km area housing parliament, government offices and many embassies.
US military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said initial reports showed eight had been killed and 20 wounded in the blast which tore through a cafe where deputies were having lunch. State television said three of the dead were lawmakers.
He said the attack bore the hallmarks of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which has been resurgent in recent weeks despite the crackdown by tens of thousands of Iraqi and US troops aimed at averting a full-scale civil war.
Footage of the blast broadcast on Iraq's al-Hurra television station showed a Shia parliamentarian being interviewed when suddenly a loud explosion sent him ducking for cover. Clouds of dust and debris swirled through the building as people shouted and tried to make their way out down stairwells.
US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is on a trip to the Far East, condemned the attack on the parliament, housed in a former conference centre.
"It reminds us though that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people in a symbol of democracy," Mr Bush said.
A truck bomb also killed at least seven people on Sarafiya bridge in northern Baghdad, a main artery linking east and west Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure and sending several cars plunging into the River Tigris below.
How explosives were smuggled into the Green Zone is likely to be the focus of an investigation. They would have had to pass through an outer checkpoint manned by US and Iraqi troops and multiple inner checkpoints guarded by security contractors and foreign troops that are part of the US-led coalition.
Entry into the conference centre would have been restricted to accredited parliamentary staff, lawmakers, security guards and journalists. Only deputies, police and kitchen staff are allowed into the cafeteria.