Car Bomb Kills 11 in Baghdad

"We think this is a response to the recent arrests," Allawi said. "We are going to defeat the evil forces. We are going to build a democratic Iraq."

Allawi described three of those arrested as leaders of the insurgency, including one who he said was not an Iraqi citizen. Speaking to reporters later in the day, the interim president, Ghazi Yawar, suggested the bomber might not have been Iraqi, a common assertion among Iraqi officials bewildered by the insurgents' targeting of civilians. U.S. military officials have acknowledged that, while bringing money and skill to the insurgency, foreign militants likely make up a small fraction of the overall resistance.

Yawar contended that in Iraq's history "there have not been problems between the Iraqis, be they ethnic or religious."

"These people are like a cancer . . . that plagues the Iraqi body," Yawar said of the insurgents. "We will treat it the proper way, God willing. We ask our people . . . for patience and, God willing, they will see results soon."

"All of the people waiting there in line were 100 percent Iraqis. There were no foreigners," said Sgt. Hussein Jassim, 23, of the Iraqi police, who helped carry 11 victims to the hospital in his police pickup truck. The truck's flat bed, as well as Jassim's pale-blue uniform shirt, were smeared with blood. He pointed to the stained Iraqi police patch on his shirt and noted plaintively that it was "filled with Iraqi blood."

"They said in the beginning these operations were against the occupiers because there is occupation, and they said let the Iraqis take over. So why are they doing this now?" Jassim said. "If they keep doing this, the occupiers will say the Iraqis can't keep the country safe and they will stay more. I don't understand. Do they want them to stay more?"

Two hours after the blast, Salem Baqir, 59, was being treated at Yarmouk Hospital for wounds to his back, neck and side. He and his wife, Zahra Kadhim Abbas, had planned to enter the compound to seek an exemption from U.S.-imposed rules that bar members of the once-ruling Baath Party from holding government jobs. As they crossed the intersection, the blast knocked them down.

"I don't know what happened to her," said Baqir, a retired teacher. "The last thing I saw, she was on the ground bleeding. I pray to God for her safety."

Special correspondents Naseer Nouri, Bassam Sabti and Khalid Saffar contributed to this report.