Huge Car Bomb Kills 40 In Eastern Iraq

A car bomb ripped through the Iraqi city of Baquba today, leaving at least 40 people dead and more than 70 injured, Reuters reports. The bomb went off near midday outside a restaurant that faces the city's main courthouse. Only a short while later a second bomb went off in the city of Ramadi, killing another 13 people.

Baquba, capital of Iraq's multi-ethnic Diyala province, is one of the key battlegrounds in the American and Iraqi armies' struggle against al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents. With a shortage of ambulances, eyewitnesses reported that charred bodies remained inside cars at the scene of the blast. (More Iraq stories.)