Six killed in car bomb blast in Iraq

A suicide bomber killed six people on Tuesday outside an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad.

A suicide bomber killed six people on Tuesday outside an Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad, as insurgents stepped up attacks on targets ranging from would-be recruits to top military officers in their homes.

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The latest attacks came as politicians continued to wrangle over the make-up of the next government, more than 11 weeks after general elections, a delay that many fear plays into rebel hands.

In the fourth such attack in the capital in less than a week, a suicide bomber blew up a car outside a palace of ousted president Saddam Hussein, now used by the army, killing six people and wounding 40, a defence ministry spokesman said.

Most of the victims were soldiers or would-be recruits.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an Internet site, which it habitually uses to claim operations in Iraq, said it carried out the attack in Baghdad.

The defence ministry spokesman said another attack against an army patrol in Khalidiyah, west of the capital, killed at least three more soldiers.

In a chilling raid underlining insecurity in post- Saddam Iraq, several men in army uniforms late last night forced their way into the southern Baghdad home of Major General Adnan Faush Farawni, a senior advisor to the defence ministry.

Both he and his son, Captain Alladin Farawni, who worked in intelligence, were shot dead, the interior and defence ministries said.