Iraqis used heavy machines and shovels yesterday to search for bodies after a huge truck bomb killed 150 people in a northern town and fresh attacks in and around Baghdad killed 31 others.

Two police officers in the Shi'ite town of Tuz Khurmato confirmed 150 people had been killed in Saturday's explosion that Iraqi officials blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. The officers said 20 people were still missing and 250 were wounded.

Among the 31 dead around Baghdad were 23 new Iraqi army recruits who were killed when a suicide truck bomber rammed into their truck while they were travelling south of the capital.

Many of the victims in Tuz Khurmato were women and children who were shopping. The parked truck, packed with explosives but covered with hay so it would not arouse suspicion, destroyed around 50 small shops and 50 houses, officials said.

Abbas Kadhim told Reuters the blast levelled his house, killing his wife, his two sons aged six and eight, his parents and also a brother. ?I can't comprehend what has happened. My entire family was killed in one moment,? said Kadhim, who was at work at the time.

A lot of car bombs put together

?There is no value left in my life ... I have asked God why I didn't just die with them so I wouldn't have to go through this torture.? The death toll of 150 makes it the second deadliest insurgent bombing in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. In March, a truck bomb attack also blamed on al Qaeda killed 152 people in the northern town of Tal Afar.

The surge in bombings comes despite a major US and Iraqi military offensive that has focused largely on Baghdad and the beltways around the capital, where US commanders believe a lot of car bombs are put together. The offensive has driven many militants out of Baghdad to areas where the troop presence is not as heavy.

Police said heavy machinery had been brought in from larger towns to dig through the rubble of the market in Tuz Khurmato, 185 km north of Baghdad. Security forces had cordoned off the area.

?I just visited the scene. It looks like an earthquake happened there,? Shalal Abid al-Ahmed, a member of the Salahuddin provincial council, told Reuters. One policeman added: ?People from the whole town of Tuz Khurmato are helping, some have brought along small shovels. We have also called in heavy machinery.?

US officials blame most big car bombings on al Qaeda, which they say is trying to trigger civil war between Iraq's majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs. The suicide truck bomber struck the new Iraqi army soldiers just after they had left a recruitment centre in western Anbar province, police and army officials said.

They said 27 recruits had been wounded in the attack near the town of Haswa. The recruits were Sunni Arabs who had just joined Iraq's security forces. Tribal leaders in Anbar have rounded up thousands of young men to join local security forces to fight al Qaeda.

Tribal elders turned against the militant group last year, partly over its indiscriminate killing of civilians and harsh imposition of Islam in the areas it holds sway. That has forced many al Qaeda militants out of Anbar, but others have fought back, sparking a bloody power struggle in the vast desert province. In Baghdad, a car bomb killed six people on a busy shopping street, while two more people died in a second blast in the capital, police said.

Mustafa MOHAMMED