At least 33 people were killed and 127 wounded, including a woman, when a car bomb exploded in the gates of a recruitment centre for the new Iraqi Army in Baghdad on Thursday morning, medical officials said.

Bodies, bloody and battered, lay tangled in the street  outside the centre, as ambulances on the scene struggled to deal with the chaos, an AFP reporter said.

Rescue workers heaped badly mutilated bodies into ambulances and police trucks while dazed Iraqi Army men in uniform stood watching the carnage.

"They attacked the Iraqi Army recruiting centre with a car bomb, we are trying to rescue people," said police officer Saad Idan.

"It is an attack on the Iraqi Army," he added. "Eight corpses were brought here and 100 wounded, among them a woman, were admitted," Abdul Moneim Hussein, chief of  the emergency department at Karama hospital, told AFP.

At least 10 vehicles were damaged in the blast, which shattered windows and scattered glass across the street.

"It was a car bomb, we don't know the type of car that exploded we just have an engine and a gear box left," said Saad Mafaa, a police officer who witnessed the attack.

"It was loaded with cannon shells and it exploded in the gates of the recruitment centre, we don't know how many causalties for now," he added.

The recruitment centre is near the US-led coalition headquarters and a military operating base, close to the old Muthanna airport.

AFP