30 killed as suicide car bomber targets US troops

A car bomb detonated outside a hospital in the centre of a town south of Baghdad today, killing 30 and wounding 35.

Among the dead were four police guards, three women and two children, said Dr Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the Mahmoudiya hospital.

Iraqi army Capt. Ibrahim Abdeallah said the suicide bomber was targeting US military vehicles parked near the hospital in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. He said US troops sealed off the scene and there was no damage to the US vehicles. There were no immediate reports of US casualties.

Mahmoudiya is a religiously-mixed town in the so-called triangle of death, a region known for attacks on coalition forces and Shiites moving through the area to visit shrines south of the region.