Deadly blast at government office in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber detonated an explosive-rigged car outside Iraq's main religious affairs office for Shia Muslims yesterday, shearing off the facade of the three-story building and killing at least 23 people in the deadliest single attack in the country in three months, officials said.

More than 70 people were wounded in the explosion that shattered nearby windows and damaged cars in Baghdad's central Bab al-Muadham area, two police officials said.

Firefighters searched the debris for survivors.

In apparent retaliation, a mortar shell hit close to Iraq's main office for Sunni Muslim religious affairs in northeastern Baghdad later in the day, but caused no damage or injuries.

Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq in recent years, but attacks on government offices and members of the security forces, aimed at undermining the Shia-led ruling coalition, are still common. Yesterday's explosion came at a time of a prolonged political paralysis caused by sectarian tensions.

Adel Ahmed, an employee in the Baghdad Health Department, said he was reading a newspaper in his office near the religious affairs building when the blast went off around 11 a.m.

"The ceiling fell on my head and I was slightly wounded in the head and fell down," Ahmed told The Associated Press by phone. He said he walked to the scene of the explosion and saw wounded people on the ground screaming for help. "The scene was horrific," he said.

The damaged building housed the so-called Shia endowment, or department that supervises Shia religious affairs, including holy sites and mosques across Iraq.

Police officials said the blast was set off by a suicide bomber. A doctor in a nearby hospital confirmed the casualty figures.

It was the deadliest attack in Iraq since March 5, when assailants waving the battle flag of al-Qaida gunned down 25 policemen in the western Iraqi town of Haditha. Last week, a string of bombings killed 17 people in Baghdad and one in the northern town of Mosul.