ISKANDARIYAH, IRAQ -- A bomb attack on an Iraqi police station south of Baghdad killed at least 50 people Tuesday, according to the director of the main hospital treating the injured. An estimated 50 people were wounded.

The death toll, if accurate, makes it the most lethal attack in a series of assaults on police stations in Iraq. It contiues a pattern of insurgent targeting of individuals cooperating with U.S. authorities.

Among the victims were a number of Iraqi's standing in line to sign up as police recruits, the Associated Press reported.

Mohammed Ali, a day laborer who witnessed the explosion and helped to remove the injured from the area, said that men, women and children were "running everywhere" after the blast, some of them in flames.

He said the bomb left a crater nearly nine feet deep.

Tuesday's bomb could further complicate efforts by the US to guarantee security in the country as the U.S. begins the process of turning over governmental responsibilities to Iraqis in June.

Indeed, the blast came as United Nations officials were studying the security situation in the country to determine the feasibility of holding elections sooner, rather than later, as demanded by Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Daniel Senor, senior advisor to the U.S. occupying authority, said on CNN that he understood that at least 40 people died.

Hospital director Dr. Razaq Jabbar said his facility had received 50 dead and 50 injured.

Jabbar said some of the victims were policemen "but many more were civilians applying for jobs and passers-by."

At least 350 Iraqi police and security personnel have died since May. Many other Iraqis, some cooperating with the United States and some simply bystanders, have been killed by bombings as well.

At least a hundred Iraqis died on February 1 in twin suicide bombings during celebrations in the Kurdish city of Irbil.

Eighteen people, mostly Iraqis, died on Jan. 18 in an attack outside coalition headquarters in Baghdad.

On Dec. 14, a car bomb at a police station in Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, took 17 lives.

Tuesday, U.S. troops sealed off area around the station and refused to allow journalists near the blast site.

In Baghdad, Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a coalition spokesman, said no U.S. or other coalition forces were killed or injured.

Ariana Cha reported from Iskandariyah. Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported from Baghdad.Fred Barbash reported from Washington.

---

Direct Link:
--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27943-2004Feb10.html

---