Suicide car bombing in Iraq kills 51

At least 51 people were killed and 40 wounded Wednesday in a suicide bombing outside a police station in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi interior ministry said.

A massive explosion detonated by a suicide bomber in front of a queue of people killed 30 people and injured 40 others, in addition to 21 passengers on a bus which passed by when the blast occurred, an interior ministry's spokesman said.

The blast took place at about 9:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) when young men were queuing outside the police station to join the police.

Earlier, a senior Interior Ministry official said, the attack killed at least 30 people and wounded 70 others.

The US military said at least 20 civilians were killed and 15 wounded when a bomb carried in a minibus, exploded shortly after 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) outside a market, close to the police station.

Several cars, buildings and shops surrounding the fortified police station were badly damaged while the police building was saved, al Jazeera Arabic satellite channel reported.

Ambulances raced to the scene and carried the dead and injured to the nearby hospital while police sealed off the area, preventing large crowds or onlookers, including the media, from approaching to the building.

The US troops were also at the scene and cordoned off the area.

Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, has been the scene of regular anti-coalition attacks since US-led forces invaded Iraq in March, 2003, but fighters have frequently targeted Iraqi security forces describing them as collaborators with occupation troops.