| The blast killed at least two Iraqis and wounded more than a dozen. Police at the scene said the office of Iraq’s prime-minister designate was not far away and speculated that he could have been the intended target. Frantic relatives thronged the scene of the blast to see if their loved ones were safe. "Oh God, Oh God," cried one hysterical woman after her neighbor told her that her mother and child were killed by the blast, which left a 10-foot-deep crater. A young girl hit by shrapnel died in hospital after doctors failed to revive her. "There was a Mercedes car driving down the street and then it turned and suddenly blew up," said witness Mohammad Abbas. "After that we didn’t see anything." Debris was scattered across a wide area and a pall of smoke hung over the area as crowds of locals gathered to look at the destruction. Fire fighters on the scene doused the burned-out wreckage of several cars. In the aftermath of the blast, some Iraqis tried to tend to the wounded and to collect body parts. "This is somebody’s skin," a veiled woman, carrying body parts in a plastic bag, said to a policeman. "Where should I put it?" |