Suicide car bomb attack at army recruiting centre leaves 46 dead

A SUICIDE attacker blew up a car in a crowd of hundreds of men waiting outside a Baghdad army recruiting centre yesterday, killing at least 46 in the second bombing in two days targeting Iraqis working with the coalition.

The attack, a day after a suicide bombing at a police station killed up to 53 people, backed threats insurgents would step up violence to disrupt the planned June 30 handover of power to the Iraqis.

A campaign to accelerate attacks against Iraqi "collaborators" and Shiite Muslims was outlined in a document sent to al-Qaida leaders that was intercepted by the US military. The letter, copies of which were released yesterday by US authorities, was believed to have been written by a Jordanian militant in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said he sought to spark a Sunni-Shiite civil war in an attempt to wreck the handover.