Dozens die in suicide car-bomb attack in Iraq
At least 35 people have been killed and 150 left injured in a suspected suicide-bomber attack outside an Iraqi police station in the Shia Muslim town of Iskandariya.
Both the Iraqi police and US military officials said they suspected a suicide attacker had delivered the bomb in a pick-up truck, as new recruits for the police force queued up outside the building.
The focus of the attack is likely to have been on the newly created Iraqi police force, set up by the US-led coalition, with militants having already been held accountable for the deaths of at least 300 members of the force.
According to reports from BBC correspondents, an angry crowd had gathered at the scene of the incident, with anti-American slogans audible in a town which had once been recognised as having largely welcomed the US-led invasion and subsequent liberation from the rule of Saddam Hussein.
With the final death toll feared to be as high as 50 according to a doctor at the town’s local hospital, the blast may be the worst loss of life in Iraq since the twin bomb attacks in the northern city of Irbil on February 1st.
Provincial Governor Imad Lifty told the BBC that all of the dead were local people.
“It appears the amount of explosives used was huge because it killed so many and devastated the buildings,” he said.
