A suicide truck bombing at dusk in a small Shi'ite Muslim town killed 30 people and wounded 42, as Pentagon estimates showed that more than 60 Iraqis are killed or wounded every day by insurgent attacks.

In a first partial public count of Iraqi casualties in the war, available yesterday, the Pentagon estimated nearly 26,000 Iraqis were killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents since January 2004, with the daily number increasing fairly steadily.

In Saturday's attack, the bomber parked a truck laden with dates in the centre of Howaider and gathered a crowd of customers around the vehicle to buy the produce before he detonated a massive charge, police said.

Among the dead were merchants breaking the daily Ramadan fast at sunset in their shops around the marketplace and people out enjoying the festive atmosphere of dusk in the holy month.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the targeting of Shi'ite civilians bore the marks of extreme Sunni Muslim militants like al-Qaida in Iraq and recalled an attack six weeks ago in Baghdad when a bomber gathered a crowd of Shi'ite day labourers seeking work and killed more than 100.

A Pentagon report to Congress said casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces rose from about 26 a day between January 1 and March 31, 2004, to about 64 a day between August 29 and September 16, 2005, just before the constitutional referendum.

The numbers exclude Iraqis killed or wounded by US forces, for which the Pentagon says it does not release data. The Pentagon has not previously provided such a comprehensive estimate of the Iraqi casualty toll from insurgent attacks.

"Approximately 80 per cent of all attacks are directed against Coalition Forces, but 80 per cent of all casualties are suffered by Iraqis," the report said.

Source: China Daily