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Hilla suicide bomb toll reaches 105. 28/02/2005. ABC News Online

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Last Update: Monday, February 28, 2005. 9:34pm (AEDT)
Hilla suicide bomb toll reaches 105
A car bombing near a medical centre in a town south of Baghdad has killed 105 people, in the single deadliest insurgent attack in Iraq in more than a year.
Hospital officials say the blast ripped through a crowd of civil servants waiting outside a medical centre in Hilla, capital of Babil province.
It has left another 133 people wounded.
The bombing is the worst attack in Iraq since 105 people were killed in the northern city of Arbil in February last year in suicide bombings targeting Kurdish political parties.
Ambulances are carrying dead and wounded to the hospital, where doctors are working to tend the wounded, who fill almost every room at the facility.
At the site of the blast, the burnt chassis of the suicide bomber's car smoulders in the street of the packed commercial district.
The attack comes as the Iraqi Government is expected to shed light on the arrest of Saddam Hussein's half-brother amid speculation he was handed over by Syria.
In other violence, a US soldier has been shot dead at a traffic checkpoint in Baghdad.
Two Iraqi soldiers have been killed in a gun battle south of the restive city of Samarra, while an Iraqi soldier and translator have died in a mortar attack near Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad.
A civilian has been killed and two wounded during a small arms attack on a police station in Baquba.
Maintaining the pressure on insurgents, the US marines pressed ahead with their week-long offensive in al-Anbar province, considered the gateway from Syria to Iraq.
The military says 51 people have been detained over the past 48 hours, raising to 211 the number of suspected rebels detained in Operation River Blitz.
- AFP

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