Bomber kills four in Baghdad

A fireman runs from the scene after a garbage truck exploded at dawn near a hotel used by western contractors in central Baghdad, Iraq yesterday. The blast shook buildings and covered the area with acrid black smoke. Volleys of automatic weapons fire could be heard before and after the blast. PHOTO: AP

A suicide bomber detonated a garbage truck packed with explosives yesterday outside a hotel used by Western contractors, killing himself and at least three people, officials said.

Dozens of people were injured in the dawn truck blast. Police officer Mazin Hamid said the attacker drove the truck into a parking lot between the Sadeer hotel, which has been repeatedly attacked by gunmen in the past, and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Volleys of automatic weapons fire could be heard before and after the explosion.

Police said a group of insurgents wearing police uniforms first shot dead a guard at the ministry's gate, allowing the garbage truck to enter a compound the ministry shares with the hotel. Foreign security officials said other security guards in the area then fired on the vehicle, trying to disable it before it exploded.

Casualties were taken to several hospitals in the city.

Officials at al-Kindi hospital said at least three dead and five wounded were taken there.

Ibn al-Nafis hospital counted at least 27 wounded, said Dr Falleh al-Jubouri.

The massive blast shook buildings in the area and covered a huge swath of sky with acrid black smoke, much of it coming from the flaming wreckage of the truck and several other burning cars. Around 20 vehicles in the parking lot were damaged.

35 bodies discovered

Police yesterday also said they found 35 bodies in two different places in Iraq, some shot to death, the others beheaded.

Twenty of the corpses were found late on Tuesday near Rumana, a village about 20km east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, police Captain Muzahim al-Karbouli said.

Each of the bodies was riddled with bullets and found wearing civilian clothes, al-Karbouli said. The dead included one woman, but their identities were not known, he said.

Al-Karbouli said the victims appeared to have been killed several days earlier. They had not been died up or beheaded, as other victims have in Iraq.

A separate discovery was made on Tuesday south of Baghdad in Latifiya, where 15 headless bodies were found by Iraqi troops.

The decapitated corpses were found inside an abandoned base of the former Iraqi army, defense ministry Captain Sabah Yassin said. The bodies included 10 men, three women and two children.

Yassin said the bodies had no identification on them. But some of the dead men were thought to have been part of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents in the area two weeks ago, Yassin said.

`friendly fire' probes

Meanwhile, the US military said it will fast-track an investigation into why American troops fired on a car carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist for the left-wing Il Manifesto newspaper, during a rescue from insurgents. Sgrena was wounded and Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed in the incident.

The decision came as it also opened an inquiry on Tuesday into the shooting death of a Bulgarian soldier Private Gardi Gardev. That death appeared to be another friendly fire incident that also happened on Friday.

Both probes were an indication of the pressure being brought on the Bush administration by the few US allies in Europe that have steadfastly supported his policies in Iraq.

Italy and its prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, sent 3,000 troops to Iraq, while Bulgaria has 460. Both countries have said they will not withdraw their troops, but domestic pressure to bring them home has been growing -- especially in Bulgaria where it has become an election issue.

In other news, Interim National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said ousted dictator Saddam Hussein could stand trial by year's end. "I will be surprised if I do not see Saddam in the box before the end of the year," he said. "I am very much hopeful that Saddam will be in the box around September and October, before the general referendum" on a constitution.