Suicide car bomber hits Iraq convoy

A suicide car bomber struck the convoy of Iraq's minister of labour, killing 11 people and wounding 22, police say.

An Iraqi soldier secures the area as a truck removes a destroyed car on Oct 23 2008 where a suicide bomber slammed into the convoy of Iraq's labour minister, killing at least eleven people.

BAGHDAD // A suicide car bomber struck the convoy of Iraq's minister of labour today, killing 11 people and wounding 22, police said. A spokesman for the ministry said the minister, Mahmoud al Sheikh Radhi, was unhurt. Three of his bodyguards were among the dead. A cameraman in the vicinity said he filmed the blast but an Iraqi soldier confiscated his videotape. The cameraman, about 150 metres away at the time of the explosion, saw a car slam into a convoy of six or seven four-wheel-drive vehicles and explode in a ball of flame near Tahrir square in central Baghdad.

Police and bodyguards in the convoy opened fire after the blast. Several vehicles crashed and others sped away. Violence across Iraq has fallen over the past year to four-year lows, but militants are still able to carry out frequent car bomb and suicide bomb attacks. Suicide bombings are a signature tactic of al Qa'eda militants. *Reuters