35 dead in Baghdad blast

At least 35 people died and more than 130 were wounded today when a car bomb ripped through a busy army base in Baghdad.

The bomb was detonated after the vehicle was driven through a crowd and into a recruitment centre for the Iraqi army.

About 100 volunteers were trying to enter the centre when the car sped through the crowd, said Captain Hani Hussein of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.

"The car was loaded with cannon shells and it exploded in the gates of the recruitment centre," said an officer on duty.

Ambulances arrived at the scene, which is near to the heavily armed Muthanna military airport, where a number of US troops are based.

Iraqi police cordoned off the area around the blast, which damaged several vehicles, including an armoured car.

Debris was scattered across a four-lane highway which was stained with blood. At least one artillery shell could be seen lying on the road.

One man lay dead in a battered white car after the explosion, as Iraqi soldiers, rescuers and locals milled about in confusion. Another body was lying on the road. The dead and wounded were taken to the Yarmouk hospital. Other casualties are believed to have been transported to the city's Karkh hospital.

Yas Khudair, a security forces member, said: "All of the victims who came here are poor people trying to earn a living. They wanted to volunteer to support their families. "There were no Americans nearby when the explosion took place."

It is the latest in a series of attacks by insurgents determined to undermine Iraq's interim government ahead of the planned transfer of power from the US-led occupation on 30 June.

American troops sealed off the area after the blast - the second to have targeted the base this year.

A car bomb exploded at the base on 11 February, killing 47 Iraqi army recruits and passersby.

Earlier this week two Britons and three other Western workers were killed in the Iraqi capital when a car bomb exploded in a city square during rush hour.

The Britons were security guards protecting a group of electrical engineers who had been recruited to rebuild Iraq's power grid.

Ten contractors were wounded. At least eight Iraqis were killed and dozens injured.

Within minutes of the blast, local people were dancing and singing around the burning vehicles, chanting anti-US slogans and attacking flags plucked from the wreckage. The two dead Britons were employed by Olive Security, which recruits former members of the UK Special Forces.

The others, thought to be French and American, were engineers for Granite Services Inc, a subsidiary of US conglomerate General Electric.

The bomb exploded as their three trucks passed through Tahrir Square in central Baghdad. It crushed the vehicles and badly damaged a building nearby.

A fortnight before the allies hand over power to an Iraqi government, the country still has massive security problems.

Today's car bombing is the 18th in the space of just two weeks. A similar attack on Sunday killed at least seven Iraqis outside a US base.