Baghdad suicide bombing kills nine people

Authorities have confirmed that nine people have been killed following a suicide bomb attack in Iraq today.

A car with two people on board was driven close to a police station inside the capital, Baghdad, this morning where a number of Iraqi police officers had gathered to receive their wages. Nine people are known to have been killed and scores injured in the subsequent bomb blast.

Emergency services were quickly on the scene and dozens of wounded were ferried to nearby hospitals.

Today has also seen a separate attack on an information attaché for the Spanish embassy in Baghdad who was shot and killed.

This latest violence comes 24 hours after the US president's national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, defended the Whitehouse's policy of pre-emptive action against threats to US interests.

Ms Rice told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations yesterday that "against the backdrop of the attacks of Sept 11 2001" the pre-emption policy was the "only real option".

"From their own boasts, we know that they [terrorists] would not hesitate to use the world's most terrible weapons to bring devastation to our shores," she said.

"This threat is potentially so catastrophic - and can arrive with so little warning, by means that are untraceable - that it cannot be contained."

Whilst no physical evidence has been found that WMDs had been developed and deployed, nor any evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 attacks, Ms Rice said that "the possibility remained that he might use his weapons of mass destruction or that terrorists might acquire such weapons from his regime, to mount a future attack far beyond the scale of 9-11".

(gmcg)