A huge explosion tore through a crowded market close to the west Baghdad police headquarters Tuesday, killing at least 47 people in the deadliest single attack in the capital in six months. 

The US army and Iraqi Interior Ministry said the blast was a car bomb attack on the police building in Haifa Street, a Baghdad area known as a haven for guerrillas and criminals.

The Health Ministry said 47 people were killed and 114 wounded.

The Interior Ministry and witnesses said there may have been two simultaneous car bomb blasts. Witnesses said mortars may also have been fired at the same time.

"I was standing there talking to my friend when suddenly all I saw was blood, and my friend lying dead," said an Iraqi man who gave his name as Zafer, speaking from his hospital bed with blood and scratches on his face and a bandaged stomach.

At the blast site, rescuers pulled bodies from mangled market stalls. The area was littered with shoes, clothes and body parts

Bloodstained corpses lay on pavements strewn with chairs, glass and rubble from blown-out shopfronts. Dazed bystanders vainly checked bodies for signs of life.

Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib visited the site of yesterday's blast and condemned the perpetrators.

"They are targeting the Iraqi people and they are trying to destroy Iraq. These powers won't stop the rebuilding of Iraq," he said. "There will be no space for the terrorists and the enemies of Iraq."

In a separate attack in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, 12 policemen were killed and two wounded when gunmen opened fire on their minibus, a source at the town's main hospital said.

Meanwhile, Iraq militants loyal to al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have killed a Turkish hostage and posted a videotape on the Internet on Monday showing armed men slitting his throat.

"My name is Durmus Kumdereli. I am from Tarsus (in southern Turkey). I am a truck driver. I brought machine parts and construction materials from Turkey for an American base near Tikrit," the man said, before three men push him to the ground and appear to cut his throat with a knife.

The video was posted on the website of Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad Group on Monday, but the tape showed a date of August 17, three days after Kumdereli was abducted along with another Turkish driver.

In the tape, a blindfolded Kumdereli urged transport companies and drivers not to work in Iraq, saying they were "only serving the occupiers."

(China Daily September 15, 2004)