Last Update: Thursday, March 3, 2005. 6:29pm (AEDT):
A suicide car bomb has exploded outside the main entrance to Iraq's Interior Ministry, killing two Iraqi policemen and wounding seven others.
A senior ministry official says the car raced to the main gates of the Interior Ministry at around 7:30am (local time) and exploded when police opened fire.
"A terrorist, in a suicide car bomb, tried to force his way in to the ministry, but the guards responded quickly, firing at the car which exploded before entering the ministry grounds," the official said.
"There were two martyrs and two wounded among the police."
At al-Kindi hospital, police Major Hussein Fuad reports seven policemen are wounded.
One policeman says the suicide car bomber had driven up to the ministry's main gate hiding behind an Iraqi National Guard convoy.
Shortly before the attack, insurgents fired off a rocket-propelled grenade at an Iraqi Army checkpoint near the ministry, causing a fire.
Police cars and ambulances have rushed the wounded to al-Kindi hospital in eastern Baghdad.
The policemen carried their slumped and wounded colleagues into the emergency room, some of whom had their blue police uniforms coated in blood.
The senior Interior Ministry official says they had been on alert for such an attack.
"The party which committed this attack was known to us. We arrested some of them yesterday and two days before. We were prepared," he said.
- AFP