A car bomb killed 30 people and wounded 38 in a town east of Baghdad on Saturday at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks in and around the Iraqi capital since the US-led invasion of 2003.

A police spokesman said the explosion in Nahrwan, some 45 km from Baghdad, also wounded 38 people. ?It was not a suicide bomb,? he said. ?A car parked in the middle of the square and later it blew up.?

More than 200 people have been killed in bombings and shootings in and near Baghdad this week, including at least 114 in a single suicide bomb on Wednesday that targeted a crowd of day labourers waiting to be hired in a Shi?ite Muslim district. Iraq?s Shi?ite- and Kurdish-led government, backed by the United States, faces a Sunni Arab revolt that has intensified ahead of an Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution.

Sunni Arabs, the dominant community under ousted leader Saddam Hussein, fear they will lose influence under the new charter and many have vowed to reject it. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks in the country, this week proclaimed all-out war on majority Shi?ites.

Earlier on Saturday police in Baghdad found nine bodies shot in the head and chest in three separate incidents. One civilian was killed and 17 people, including three Iraqi soldiers, were wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near an Iraqi army patrol in Baquba, police said.