A suicide car bomb that exploded today in central Baghdad killed six Iraqi civilians and one US soldier, and injured 25 people.
The bomb, hidden inside a Baghdad taxi, exploded outside a three-feet-high concrete blast wall near a checkpoint to the main complex housing US administrative offices in Baghdad
The wall shields cars driving up to a checkpoint just before a bridge spanning the Tigris River that leads into the so-called Green Zone, an area that houses the US-led coalition and is walled off from the rest of Baghdad.
A suicide bomber in a car pulled up to the checkpoint, and then three cars back from the checkpoint, detonated his bomb, according to an army spokesman.About ten Iraqi cars were lined up inside the blast barriers when the car bomb exploded.
The explosion was so strong that it hurled the engine of the car carrying the bomb some 15 feet from the site of the blast.
A statement purportedly by an Iraqi group headed by leading al-Qaeda figure Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the suicide attack.
"At dawn on Thursday the heroic fighter Abu Mitab from the land of the Haramain [Saudi Arabia] went out in a car laden with 600 kg of TNT towards the headquarters of the occupying forces and their tails, the apostates . . . and the operation was a success," said a statement by Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, which the United States has said is headed by Zarqawi.
On January 17th, a suicide truck bombing at a Green Zone gate in central Baghdad killed 24 people and wounded about 120.