IRAQ: At least 50 people were killed and about 75 wounded in a bomb attack on an Iraqi police station yesterday. Hundreds of would-be police recruits where queuing outside the station in the mainly Shia Muslim town, 25 miles south of Baghdad, when a truck bomb exploded. The casualties were all Iraqis.
The attack was the latest aimed at Iraqis who are seen to be collaborating with US-led forces. It came a day after US officials warned that al Qaeda operatives were trying to provoke sectarian violence between the majority Shia and the minority Sunni Muslims, who held power under the former regime.
"There are around 50 martyrs, 30 of whom have been identified, and dozens wounded," said Dr Tahsin Ahmad at the hospital in Iskanderiya.
At least 20 bodies could be seen on the ground outside the hospital.
The hospital's director said he believed that 49 people had been killed. The US military confirmed at least 35 deaths, mostly civilian, and said that 75 people had been wounded.
Later yesterday, angry crowds gathered at the scene of the bombing, denouncing the American occupation of Iraq. "No, no to the Americans," they shouted.
Brig-Gen Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations chief of coalition forces in Iraq, said that the bomb contained about 225 kg of explosives. He told a news conference it was not clear whether it had been a suicide attack, but said that the incident shared the characteristics of other major attacks which US officials believe are the work of foreign groups rather than Iraqi insurgents.
"It does show some of the fingerprints," he said. "A large car-bomb . . . a large number of civilians outside a police station . . . These are indicative of a number of attacks we have seen directly against Iraqi civilians and the symbols of Iraqi authority."
Officials at the scene said that a car had been parked outside the police station and courthouse. Both buildings were badly damaged.
The bombing resulted in the worst loss of life in Iraq since twin bomb attacks in the northern city of Irbil on February 1st killed more than 100 mainly Kurdish people during holiday celebrations.
In January, a suicide car-bomber killed at least 25 civilians at the entrance to the US headquarters building in Baghdad. More than 100 people were wounded.
The US military said on Monday that soldiers had seized a computer disc containing a letter from Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom Washington links to Ansar al-Islam, outlining plans to destabilise Iraq. The US says that this group, which operates in northern Iraq, is affiliated to al Qaeda.
Brig-Gen Kimmitt said there was a clear plan to "come into this country and spark civil war, breed sectarian violence and try to expose fissures in the society".
He told reporters that US soldiers had killed 10 armed men in a firefight north-east of Baghdad.
Mr Dan Senor, chief spokesman for Iraq's US governor, Mr Paul Bremer, said that the 17-page letter outlined plans for attacks on shrines and on leaders of Iraq's Shia Muslim majority, whom Arab Sunnis and Kurds fear could dominate a future government.