A car bomb blast killed at least 35 people and wounded 119 outside an Iraqi army base in Baghdad today, police and hospital officials said.
Colonel Mike Murray of the US 1st Cavalry Division said a suicide bomber had blown up his vehicle outside the recruiting centre located near the heavily fortified Muthanna airport, where US troops are based.
Col. Murray said about 175 army recruits inside the Iraqi base were unhurt. Passersby took the brunt of the blast.
The insurgents, thought to include Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein, Iraqi nationalists and foreign militants, have targeted Iraq's oil industry, government officials and security forces in the run-up to the handover.
Oil exports, Iraq's economic lifeblood, remained paralysed today, and engineers said oil wells were being shut down while pipelines blown up in the south and north were repaired.
On foreign exchange markets, the dollar lost some of its previous day's gains on news of today's blast.
US troops sealed off the area after the attack, the second to have targeted the base this year.
A suicide car bombing at the base on February 11th killed 47 Iraqi army recruits and passersby.