UN says Iraq still too dangerous

Car bombs in Iraq killed at least 41 people on Thursday

Iraq is still too violent for United Nations staff to return, Secretary General Kofi Annan has said.

He was speaking on a day when car bombs killed at least 41 people and injured nearly 150 in the capital, Baghdad, and near the town of Balad to the north.

A UN resolution championed by the US last week foresees the return of the UN to take a "leading role" in Iraq.

But Mr Annan said he was "very worried" about the security situation and said circumstances did not permit a return.

As of today, circumstances do not permit [a return] and we are monitoring the situation extremely carefully Kofi Annan

The UN withdrew its international staff after a bomb devastated its Baghdad headquarters last August, killing envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 22 others.

"I am grateful to the [UN] Security Council that they inserted the phrase that we could go in 'as circumstances permit'," said Mr Annan in New York on Thursday, referring to the new resolution.

"As of today, circumstances do not permit and we are monitoring the situation extremely carefully."

"I would want to urge that everything be done to secure the environment, not just for the UN to return, but for the ordinary Iraqi, for reconstruction and for the stability of Iraq."

In other developments:

• Two hostages, a Turk and an Egyptian, are set free near the city of Falluja, Turkish media say

• US President George W Bush insists the ousted Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein had "numerous contacts" with al-Qaeda, the militants accused of the 9/11 attacks

Repeat attack

A suicide car bomber killed 35 people and wounded 138 outside an army recruiting centre in Baghdad, while the device which went off near Balad killed six members of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps and wounded four.

MONTH OF BOMB ATTACKS 17 June - car bombs kill at least 41 in Baghdad and near Balad 14 June - 13 people, including five foreign contractors, killed in Baghdad suicide car bombing 13 June - 12 Iraqis, including four policemen, killed in Baghdad suicide car bombing 8 June - Nine Iraqis killed and 25 wounded in Mosul car bombing 1 June - 11 Iraqis killed and 20 others, including two US soldiers, injured in suicide car bombing near Baiji In pictures: Recruits blast

A car packed with artillery shells was reportedly driven into a crowd of about 100 people queuing to volunteer outside the recruiting centre at Baghdad's old Muthenna airport, which was previously bombed in February killing about 47 people.

"About 100 of us were standing in front of the Iraqi army recruitment centre," said Issam Jassem, 32, from his hospital bed.

"An officer was in the process of reading out a list of people accepted to take part in the new army and had told us that we had to return on 26 June when the explosion happened."

Bloodied bodies, covered in dust, lay in the street as rescue workers struggled to get the wounded into ambulances.

Fear of cars

Iraq's interim Defence Minister, Hazim al-Shaalan, promised to crack down on militants with his own Iraqi forces.

"We will cut off their hands and behead them," he said.

The BBC's Barnaby Philips in Baghdad says military installations connected with the new Iraqi security forces are being hit again and again by insurgents ahead of the 30 June transfer of power.

Another BBC correspondent in Baghdad, Dumeethra Luthra, reports growing unease on the streets as the deadline approaches.

Some members of the security forces have told her they are afraid every time they have to check a vehicle, scared that it might contain a bomb, scared that this may be the car which kills them.