At least 40 people were killed and 57 wounded in a suicide bomb attack on an army recruitment centre in the northern Iraqi town of Rabia, according to the latest toll issued by police on Saturday.
An earlier toll put the number of dead at 25 and those wounded at 35 in the Friday blast. Most victims were young men waiting to join the new Iraqi army.
Police colonel Yehya Al-Shummari also said two people were reported missing.
The group of al-Qaeda’s Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack in Rabia, a town close to the Syrian border.
Also on Saturday, the bodies of a senior Baghdad airport official, his driver and an aide were found with their throats slit after they were kidnapped on Wednesday, an interior ministry official said.
Maher Yassin Jassem, who was responsible for telecommunications at the international airport, and the two employees were found blindfolded with their hands bound in a western district of the capital.
”They had also been tortured,” the official said.
The three were seized by gunmen while driving to work on Wednesday. A woman employee who was with them at the time was allowed to go free. — Sapa-AFP