Explosion south of Baghdad kills at least 110

A huge car bomb exploded in the mainly Shi'ite town of Hilla, some 120 km from the capital, Baghdad, on Monday, leaving at least 110 people dead and more than 200 injured, according to Ministry of Health officials. Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) spokeswoman Firdous al-Abadi told IRIN that they had sent a convoy of three trucks and two ambulances, along with blankets and medical supplies, to the city to help the injured. Their volunteers in the city said there was chaos after the attack which appeared to have targeted only innocent civilians. The car, which was parked near a crowd of people queuing to apply for government jobs, was carrying several dozen kilograms of explosives and mortar bombs. IRCS ambulances were used to carry the injured people to the main hospital in the city. A volunteer told IRIN that he had seen blood on the walls of nearby buildings where body parts had been thrown by the force of the explosion. Dr Hussein Abdu, working at the main hospital in the city, told IRIN that the hospital was filled with injured people, but that to treat them, making adequate assistance difficult. "We haven't seen anything like this in our city before. Most of the injured came to us missing limbs. They [insurgents] cannot accept that there is peace in a town in Iraq. They left Fallujah and came to end our peace here," Dr Abdu added. Wallid Janabi, governor of Babel province in which Hilla lies, told IRIN that people were deeply shocked by the incident which was an insult to the lives of innocent people. "People had started to live in peace, especially in the south, but with this attack the situation has changed. They were all innocent people who died, men, women and children," Janabi said. Raad Hassan, a senior officer at the Ministry of Defence, told IRIN that the bombing in Hilla - which had previously been largely unscathed by the violence seen in other Shi'ite towns - had come as a shock. "This situation should be stopped urgently. People are dying and they are all innocent. We will now have to take bigger security measures in the south, which had been one of the safest areas of the country," Hassan added.