At least 37 people were killed and dozens of others were wounded in a fiery bomb blast, as people sought to stock up on fuel this morning in Baghdad for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

It happened in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in the Iraqi capital.

Iraqi police say the bomb was hidden inside a small barrel near a kerosene tanker where scores of people had lined up to buy fuel, said police Col. Saad Abdul-Sada.

Seventeen women were among the dead, he said.

At least 38 people were wounded in the blast that blew up the tanker, and authorities expect the casualty toll to rise.

College student Dhiyaa Ali said he heard the explosion from his nearby home and ran to the street to help people.

"I went into the flames just to get anyone left out of the fire," he told The Associated Press. "I saw a mother holding her child, both of them burned and dead."

Reports say people were seen carrying survivors to ambulances in makeshift stretchers made from blankets.

Sadr City is home to more than two million people and is a stronghold of the radical Mahdi army of Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

The attack came a day after a death squad gunned down four people in an assault on Sunni Arab homes and mosques in a neighborhood where a Shiite militia last week openly threatened members of the minority.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but reports say the area has seen increasing fights between Shias and Sunni Muslims.

Leader captured

The blast occurred on the same day authorities announced the capture of a leader of the group behind the 2004 attack on a U.S. military mess hall that killed 22 people.

Muntasir al-Jibouri, a senior member of Sunni militant group Ansar al-Sunnah, and two of his aides were arrested late Friday near Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad, said a spokesperson for the Iraqi prime minister's military office.

Ansar al-Sunnah has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide attacks, the execution of 12 Nepalese hostages in August 2004 and the mess hall blast in Mosul in Dec. 2004.

That group is made up mostly of Kurds with close links to al-Qaeda in Iraq and has been blamed for a number of attacks, including attempts to assassinate Kurdish officials.

Ansar al-Sunnah is part of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of insurgent groups including al Qaeda in Iraq.

It was co-founded by the late Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Videos posted on Web

A group linked to al Qaeda posted a video on the Web Saturday showed two bodies in U.S. military uniforms being dragged behind a truck, beheaded and set on fire. The group said it was in revenge for the rape and slaying of a young Iraqi woman by troops from the same unit.

The bodies are believed to be those of two soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who disappeared when their checkpoint south of Baghdad was attacked on June 16.

The military has charged four soliders from that division in the alleged rape and murder. A fifth who was discharged because of a mental disorder before the incident came to light is being detained by a civilian court in the U.S.

Previous footage of the mutilated bodies was posted to the Web in June when the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of insurgent groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the deaths.

Another previously released video posted on the Web Saturday showed the execution of a Turkish hostage by Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Masri was announced as the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq after al-Zarqawi was killed by an air strike on June 7.

It is not known why the videos are being re-posted now.

With files from The Associated Press