Suicide truck bomb kills 9 in Baghdad

Iraq’s Health Ministry said it had so far recorded nine dead and 62 wounded but expected the death toll to rise. It said bodies were still being brought to hospitals and boxes of remains had yet to be sifted through.

At the scene of the blast, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Bill Salter said between 10 and 15 people had been killed in an attack he said was probably carried out by a suicide bomber.

‘‘We believe it was possibly a fuel-truck type vehicle,’’ Salter said. Witnesses said they saw a fuel tanker racing towards the police station moments before the explosion.

Reuters Television pictures showed flames still licking the wreckage of burnt-out cars an hour after the blast, and smoke rising from smouldering buildings. Bystanders gathered up the body parts of the dead, filling several boxes with remains.

The suicide bomb was detonated shortly after 8 am as people were arriving at work. Car workshops across the road from the police station bore the brunt of the blast, witnesses said, and several people working there were killed.

In the latest assassination of senior bureaucrats, Defence Ministry official Issam Jassem Qassim was shot dead outside his home by three gunmen late on Sunday, a ministry spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the Philippines said it had completed the withdrawal of its humanitarian military contingent in Iraq a month ahead of schedule in a bid to save the life of hostage Angelo de la Cruz, who guerrillas have threatened to execute.

The pull-out has been criticised by Washington and by Iraq’s interim government, which said Manila was bowing to terrorists.

A official at the Philippine embassy in Kuwait said 34 soldiers left their base in Iraq on Monday. Eleven were withdrawn last week. A few Filipino soldiers are expected to remain in Baghdad to protect the Philippine embassy.

The Egyptian hostage held by guerrillas was freed and safely reached the Egyptian embassy in Baghdad on Monday, diplomats at the embassy said.

Driver Mohammed Al-Gharabawi was released after the Saudi company he worked for met the demands of his kidnappers by promising to stop doing business in Iraq.

Despite the release of the Egyptian, diplomats say there is little hope that a Bulgarian hostage is still alive.

A group led by Jordanian-born Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi seized two Bulgarians earlier this month and sent video footage to Al Jazeera showing one of them being beheaded. A Turk may also have been taken hostage, colleagues said on Monday. —(Reuters)