Americans in Baghdad car bomb blast dead

A suicide car bomb exploded in central Baghdad today, killing at least six people and wounding nearly 30, including a number of American civilians.

The powerful blast in Tahrir Square damaged shops and set fire to several cars.

The attack was part of a surge in violence that has killed more than 275 people – many of them Iraqi soldiers and police – since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s new government was sworn in April 28.

Yesterday, car bombs struck a market and a police bus outside the capital, killing at least 25 people.

A dozen bodies were also uncovered in a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Baghdad – some of them blindfolded and shot execution-style.

Meanwhile, Iraqi militants holding an Australian engineer hostage issued a 72-hour ultimatum for Australia to start pulling its troops out of Iraq.

Police Maj. Abbas Mohammed Salman said at least six people died in today’s suicide car bombing at Tahrir Square.

But a police officer at the scene gave a higher casualty count, saying 17 people were killed – including some who appeared to be Westerners.

A US military spokesman Maj. Darryl Wright said the casualties from the car bomb included an unspecified number of American contract workers. He declined to provide details.

The US Embassy said it could not confirm any American casualties and was investigating.

The bodies found at the dump yesterday were discovered by scavengers sifting through garbage for scrap metal and other items to sell, police and soldiers said.

The victims, believed to be Iraqis, were found in shallow graves and seemed to have been killed recently, according to police. Some were blindfolded and had been shot in the head.

An influential association of Sunni clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, claimed the victims were Sunnis from the Madain region, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the capital. But police said they found no identification documents on the bodies.

Madain is at the tip of a notorious insurgent stronghold known as the Triangle of Death, which has seen frequent retaliatory kidnappings and killings between Shiite and Sunni groups.

Last month, scores of bodies were pulled from the Tigris River near Madain, and President Jalal Talabani claimed they were evidence of mass kidnappings and killings of Shiites. But when Iraqi security forces raided the town, no hostages were found.

Arab television station Al-Jazeera showed new film yesterday of the Australian hostage, Douglas Wood, and said the militants holding him had given Australia 72 hours to start withdrawing its forces from Iraq. It did not say what the militants would do if their deadline isn’t met.

In the footage, the 63-year-old California resident, who suffers from a serious heart condition, is shown with his head shaven and rifles pointed at him. Australia’s government has said it will ignore demands to remove its 1,370 troops.