Suicide car bomber kills 115 in Iraq

A SUICIDE car bomber blew himself up next to dozens of police and national guard recruits yesterday, killing at least 115 people and wounding more than 130, in Iraq’s bloodiest single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Torn limbs, feet and other body parts littered the street outside a clinic, where the recruits had been queuing for medicals, in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Health officials said the death toll was likely to rise.

"The martyrs may be more because there are a number of body parts to be counted," said Mahmoud Abdul Reda, from a nearby hospital. Mortuary workers unloaded plastic body-bags from trucks as weeping relatives looked on.

Police officials said "several people" were arrested in connection with the massive blast, but did not give further details.

The attack, in a city with a majority Shiite population, came as the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance sought the support of other parties to form Iraq’s first democratically elected government.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks against predominantly Shiite targets in recent weeks.

People at the scene of the attack chanted slogans against the "wahhabis", referring to adherents of the puritanical form of Islam preached by Osama bin Laden.

Hillah is located just below the so-called "triangle of death", the mixed Sunni-Shiite region south of the capital that has earned the nickname owing to the frequency of insurgents’ attacks.

The blast was so powerful it nearly vaporised the suicide bomber’s car, leaving only its engine intact.

The injured were piled into pick-up trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.

At the bomb site outside the building, people walked around pools of blood that gathered on the road.

Scorch marks mixed with blood covered the clinic’s walls and dozens of people helped to collect body parts.

Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner.

Many of those killed were at a market across the road and were caught in the blast as they shopped.

Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "God is great", and demanding information on relatives.

"I was lined up near the medical centre, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," said 22-year-old Abdullah Salih.

"Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several metres away and I had burns on my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."

The director of Hillah General Hospital, Dia Mohammed, said most of the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.

One of the recruits, Muhsin Hadi, 29, said: "I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital." He suffered a broken leg.

A second car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles away, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others.

The previous worst attack took place in August 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including the Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Yesterday’s bombing came a day after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency.

It was the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the Iraqi government hopes will deal a crushing blow to violent opposition forces.

The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials that the country was harbouring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraqi authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.

The captive, who had the same mother as Saddam, was taken along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator’s Baath party in Hasakah in north-eastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border.

Syria is under intense pressure to drop its support for radical groups in the Middle East, to stop harbouring Iraqi fugitives and to remove its troops from Lebanon.

A week ago authorities captured a key associate and the driver of Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who is believed to be the inspiration for the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and US forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take Zarqawi soon.