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BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed 47 people and wounded scores in central Baghdad on Tuesday after luring a crowd of poor day labourers to his vehicle with promises of work, police and the Interior Ministry said.
Police said 148 people were wounded when the bomber's vehicle exploded at 7am (4pm NZT) in Tayran Square, sending a cloud of black smoke into the sky. Gunfire sounded immediately after the blast.
Tayran Square is typically a gathering point for carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, painters and other workers in the construction trade who frequent the cafes and street vendors in the early morning while waiting for the chance of some work.
Iraq is gripped by tit-for-tat sectarian killings between majority Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs once dominant under Saddam Hussein but now the backbone of the insurgency. Thousands have been killed in violence many Iraqis fear is pitching the country toward all-out communal civil war.
With a new poll showing most Americans support a quick withdrawal of US troops, US President George W. Bush is under strong pressure to shift course in Iraq, where more than 2900 US troops have died since the 2003 US-led invasion.
A week after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gave Bush 79 recommendations for changing direction in the unpopular Iraq war, Bush did not appear to be warming to some of the panel's major conclusions as he prepared his own plan.
He will hold a video teleconference with US military commanders in Baghdad, then meet Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni. He visits the Pentagon on Wednesday.
- REUTERS
