Saturday, May 7 2005 17:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Four Americans were among 17 people killed in a huge car bomb blast in central Baghdad today (May 7, 2005), security and medical sources said.

"According to the latest toll, there are 13 Iraqi civilians killed and four foreigners whose bodies were completely charred," the official said.

He added that at least 33 Iraqis were also wounded in the blast, among them women and children.

"According to the badges we found, they are Americans," said medic Khaled Ibrahim. A US officer on the scene confirmed that the four were US citizens.

A car bomb parked on Baghdad's busy Tahrir Square went off at 11:05 am (12:35HRS IST) and struck a convoy of sports utility vehicles, of a sort widely used to escort prominent Iraqis or foreigners.

The bodies of the four foreigners, presumed to be security guards, were completely charred inside the wreckage of their vehicles.

The explosion shook central Baghdad and sent a huge mushroom of smoke billowing into the sky.

Shots were fired as chaos filled the busy square, which commands access to the Jumhuriya bridge leading to the fortified Green Zone administrative enclave.

Police and foreign security guards secured the area, as ambulances rushed the wounded to nearby hospitals. A man could be seen trying to crack open the door of a damaged vehicle with a sledgehammer to extract its occupant.

Medics at the capital's Kindi hospital confirmed that four dead and 25 injured had been brought to them while sources at the emergency ward of the Ibn al-Nafees hospital said that they had received two dead and seven wounded.