A suicide driver today detonated a powerful car bomb outside the main gate to the headquarters compound of the US-led coalition in Baghdad, killing 20 people, including two civilians working for the US Department of Defence, and injuring dozens of others, US officials said.
At least 60 people, including six Americans, were injured in the blast, US officials said.
It happened at about 8 a.m. in dense, morning mist near the "Assassin's Gate" to Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace complex, now used by the US-led occupation authority for headquarters.
It was the deadliest single attack in Iraq since Saddam was captured on December 13th near his hometown of Tikrit.
Seventeen people were killed in a suicide bombing in Khaldiyah west of Baghdad the day after Saddam was arrested.
The Assassin's Gate is used by hundreds of Iraqis employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the US-led occupation authorities, as well as US military vehicles.
The US military press office said the 18 dead included 16 Iraqi civilians and two American civilians.
The injured included 22 Iraqi civilians, four civilians working for the Defense Department and two US soldiers, the press office said.
The military initially identified the Defence Department victims as Americans but later said the nationalities were uncertain. A spokesman said it was unclear if they were DOD staff or civilian contractors.
There were conflicting reports about whether one or two vehicles were involved in the attack.
Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, deputy commander of the 1st Armoured Division, said the blast was caused by a car bomb with one driver in the vehicle.
"About 8 o'clock this morning a car attempted to enter through that entrance, exploded at the outside part of the security barriers," Hertling told CNN International. "It certainly was a vehicle-borne bomb, suicide bomb. There was evidently someone in the car."
Brig. Gen. Hertling said that the blast occurred "literally at the last point a vehicle could get to without being stopped. The barriers absorbed most of the blast."
The area is one of the most heavily guarded in the capital. US soldiers guarding the gate usually stand about 20 yards from the road behind coils of barbed wire and concrete barriers. Iraqi witnesses said one, possibly two, Land Cruisers attempted to enter the gate when they exploded.
US administrator L. Paul Bremer, who is in the United States for talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, called the bombing "another clear indication of the murderous and cynical intent of terrorists to undermine freedom, democracy and progress in Iraq. They will not succeed."