A car bomber killed up to 17 people and wounded 65 today at a police building in the mainly Shia city of Hilla in Iraq.
Iraq's army and police have been on high alert since American forces shot dead the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and security officials said they had received intelligence that the Sunni Islamist group's Iraqi wing would carry out revenge attacks.
The suicide bomber rammed his car into the entrance of a police headquarters in the centre of Hilla during a shift change this morning when many police officers were outside the building. Most of the dead and wounded were police.
Babil province deputy governor Sadeq al-Muhanna said he believed al-Qaeda was responsible. “We said before and we say it again, al-Qaeda will not be finished by the killing of its leader," he said.
"These events happen on a daily basis in Iraq and nothing could prove that it has anything to do with the killing of bin Laden. These are routine events in Iraq. Security breaches, we are used to them," an Interior Ministry source said.
Iraq has been a major battlefield for al-Qaeda since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Dozens of bombings and other attacks are still mounted each month, although US and Iraqi officials says al-Qaeda in Iraq has been severely degraded in recent years.
Reuters