At least 73 people were killed on Tuesday in a Baghdad car bombing and in an ambush on police in Baquba, claimed by al-Qaeda-linked militants, as fighting flared between US troops and insurgents in Ramadi.
Fifty people perished in Baghdad, 47 of them when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up outside the main police headquarters. Shrapnel tore the crowded district, littering body parts everywhere and leaving pools of congealed blood on the pavement.
Witnesses said that dozens of people were queuing outside the station, which doubles as a police recruitment centre sending shards of shrapnel flying and clouds of smoke into the air. A health ministry spokesman said that 47 people were killed and 114 wounded in the blast, which occurred in the Haifa street area. Two other Iraqis were seriously wounded when another bomb exploded near the planning ministry nearly simultaneously, the health ministry said.
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