A suicide attacker slammed a truck loaded with explosives into concrete barriers outside a Baghdad police station today, killing at least 20 people and wounding 30.
The blast in the Mashtal area of eastern Baghdad killed and wounded both policemen and civilians, a police source said.
Militants have stepped up suicide bombings in the last 10 days as part of a campaign to topple the US-backed Iraqi government.
Six cars, including two police cars, were seen burning and several nearby shops were damaged, police officials said. The blast left a giant, blackened crater at the scene.
Body parts lay scattered around the area as firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze and rescue workers carried away victims on stretchers.
Meanwhile, members of former prime minister Ayad Allawi's bloc threatened to walk out of the constitutional drafting committee in support of a Sunni group that boycotted the process.
Committee member Adnan al-Janabi, who also is part of secular leader Mr Allawi's eight-member bloc, criticised the way the commission dealt with Sunni members' decision to suspend their participation in drafting the new charter.
"Their demands and suspension of membership should have been studied and taken in a way that reassures them and brings them to participate in the draft constitution that we want to be agreed upon by all Iraqis," he said.
Agencies