A sucide car bomber killed 35 people at an Iraqi military base in Baghdad on Thursday as guerrillas intensified a bloody campaign to sabotage plans for US-led occupation to give way to Iraqi rule on June 30.The blast outside an Army recruiting centre on a busy road also wounded 138 people, Iraq’s Health Minister said.Colonel Mike Murray of the US 1st Cavalry Division said the bomber had blown up a white four-wheel-drive vehicle at the centre near Muthanna airport, where US troops are based.Passersby and would-be Army recruits took the brunt of the blast, the deadliest single attack in Iraq since a suicide bomber killed 47 people on the same spot in February. Iraqis hoping to join the Army were waiting for recruiting officers to call their names when the bomb exploded and hot shrapnel scythed through the crowd.‘‘I heard my salary would be 600,000 dinars a month. I needed a job,’’ said Ibrahim Ismail, who had been trying to sign up, from his hospital bed. ‘‘Then suddenly there was huge explosion. Ten or 15 others were on top of me on the street. I can’t go back. No way.’’Guerrillas have mounted a lethal drive to undermine Iraq’s new interim government ahead of the June 30 handover. ‘‘This was a cowardly attack. It is a demonstration again that these attacks are aimed at the stability of Iraq and the Iraqi people,’’ Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said at the scene.The insurgents, thought to include Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein, Iraqi nationalists and foreign militants, have targeted the oil industry, government officials and security forces in the runup to the formal transfer of power.Meanwhile, a separate car bombing killed six Iraqi civil defence guards and wounded four others north of Baghdad on Thursday. The bomb exploded outside the city council offices in Yethrib a US military spokesman said. — (Reuters)
