A suicide truck bomb has blown up outside a Baghdad police station, killing at least 10 people, wounding dozens and destroying cars and buildings.
The bombing came as the Philippines prepared to bring the last of its troops home, giving in to a demand by insurgents threatening to kill a Filipino hostage.
US Army Lieutenant Colonel Bill Salter said between 10 and 15 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in the attack, which he said was probably carried out by a suicide bomber.
"We believe it was possibly a fuel-truck type vehicle," Salter told reporters. Witnesses said they saw a fuel tanker racing towards the police station moments before the explosion.
The bomb went off shortly after 8 a.m. local time, 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.
"Those who were standing in the open were killed. Those who saw it were killed," said car workshop worker Laith Abdel Karim.
It was the latest in a series of suicide bombings in recent days. A car bomb outside the headquarters of the US military and Iraqi interim government in Baghdad last week killed 11 people and another outside an Iraqi National Guard garrison 200 km northwest of Baghdad killed 10.
A suicide bomber tried to assassinate Iraq's justice minister on Saturday, killing five of his bodyguards.
Insurgents often target the police and the National Guard, accusing them of collaborating with the US military. One National Guardsman at the scene of Monday's bombing was angered by that accusation.
"They say we collaborate with the coalition. We don't collaborate, we just protect our nation. We protect the land of Iraqis," Amer Shaker Mehdi said.
After the attack, Iraqi police fired warning shots into the air to disperse a crowd of angry Iraqi youths who chanted: "With our souls and blood, we sacrifice to you, Saddam!"
Iraqi security personnel rebuked them. One pointed to the carnage left by the bombing and said: "That's Saddam Hussein for you."