Baghdad, Iraq ? A suicide car bomber crashed a white Oldsmobile into a police station in Iraq’s largest Shiite Muslim enclave Thursday, killing himself, nine others and wounding as many as 45. Earlier, gunmen — one dressed as a Muslim cleric — shot and killed a Spanish military attache.

The violence, six months to the day after Baghdad fell to American forces, underscored the predicament of a capital whose independence has been repeatedly undermined by terrorism, attacks on U.S. forces and sectarian unrest.

The ancient city’s landscape is now lined with massive concrete blast barriers and coils of barbed wire outside hotels, government departments and along stretches of road near U.S. military bases.

As in previous attacks, there was no claim of responsibility for the 8:30 a.m. bombing in Sadr City, a Baghdad district with an estimated 2 million Shiites.

“It was a huge blast and everything became dark from the debris and sand. I was thrown to the ground,” said Mohammed Adnan, who sells watermelons opposite the police station.

Vegetable seller Fakhriya Jarallah said two of her sons were repairing the outside wall of the compound.

“I ran across the road like a madwoman to find out what happened to my sons. But thanks to God they are both safe,” she said.

Policemen and some in the crowd that gathered outside the police station after the explosion offered an assortment of possible culprits ranging from non-Iraqi Arab militants to Saddam loyalists and Shiite radicals angry about a cleric’s arrest.

The killing of the Spanish military attache happened across town in the upscale Mansour area about 30 minutes before the car bombing.

A U.S. Army soldier guards the blast area after an explosion outside a police station in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. The suicide car bomber struck at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez, an air force sergeant attached to Spain’s National Intelligence Center, was shot to death after four men, one dressed as a Muslim cleric, knocked on the door of his home, according to a Spanish diplomat in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A guard in the area, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Gomez opened the door to the gunmen. When they tried to grab him, he ran outside and was shot. The guard said he heard six shots and Gomez was hit in the head at least once.

American, Iraqi and Spanish authorities were investigating the attack, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Commenting on Thursday’s violence, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, emphasized his government’s commitment to fighting terrorism, branding the perpetrators of attacks in Iraq as individuals who have shown “wanton disregard” for the lives of innocent people.

In other developments Thursday:

As of Thursday, 326 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense.On or since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 188 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq, according to the latest Defense Department figures.Since the start of military operations, 1,448 U.S. troops have been injured by hostile action.

• Iraq’s national electricity network — crippled by war, looting and sabotage — has surpassed the production levels of the prewar period for the first time in six months, Bremer reported.
• U.S. troops arrested an Iraqi resistance leader believed to be responsible for scores of deadly attacks against American forces around Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. They also uncovered a factory where deadly roadside bombs were being built.
• A 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a U.S. convoy northeast of Baghdad, the military said.
• U.S. soldiers conducted a raid Sunday near the Syrian border and detained 112 suspects, including a high-ranking official in the former Republican Guard, the military announced Thursday.
• Bremer said Thursday he welcomed the White House’s decision for a new coordinating committee for Iraq. Bremer reports to the Defense Department, but it was disclosed earlier this week the White House had set up an oversight committee for Iraq operations.