Car bomb kills 44 in Baghdad

A huge car bomb killed 44 Iraqis waiting outside an army recruiting centre in Baghdad today.

The car was packed with about 500lb of plastic explosives mixed with artillery shells for maximum "kill effect," a US spokesman said.

There were about 400 Iraqi men waiting in a queue when a white car was driven past and then blew up. At least 36 people were injured.

Most of the victims were newly-recruited soldiers reporting for duty.

The bomb is the second attack in less than 24 hours to target Iraqis co-operating with coalition forces.

Yesterday a suicide bomber detonated a lorry full of explosives outside a police station to the south of Baghdad, killing 53.

Today's blast at about

7.40am was less than a mile from the so-called Green Zone - the high-security area where American administrators have their headquarters.

US Colonel Ralph Baker said the attack was not aimed at US soldiers or officials.

He added: "It was a suicide attack by a single male who was killed. It was aimed strictly at Iraqis."

Hussein Raad, 20, was among those injured in the blast and is now being treated in hospital. He said: "We saw a car approaching. We were chatting together

and suddenly felt the explosion. The blast threw me a few metres."

US troops closed off the area of the blast, known as Muthana Airport - a small air facility abandoned for decades but recently used by the new Iraqi army.

Offices of a fundamentalist Shi'ite Muslim group are situated nearby. Yesterday's suicide bombing in the town of Iskandariyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, reduced parts of the police station to rubble.

Policeman Wissam Abdul-Karim, who was thrown to the ground by the explosion, said: "It was the day for applying for new recruits. There were dozens of them waiting outside the police station." The bombings followed warnings from coalition officials that insurgents would step up attacks against Iraqis who work with the coalition ahead of the transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government in June.

US air force general Richard Myers, chairman of the military's joint chiefs of staff, said he was optimistic about security despite the attacks. He said there had been "a lot of success" in bringing stability and security to Iraq.

US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said between 150,000 and 210,000 Iraqis were working in the security forces and were "getting better at it all the time".