A group of women in night gowns, some with blankets draped over their shoulders, emerged into the street, faces covered in soot.

"My son, my son!" screamed an old woman as she was comforted by the others who explained to her that he had been rushed to the hospital.

They refused to say whether he was part of the ministry's security force or just passing by when a truck bomb went off at 6:30 (0330 GMT) leaving a trail of destruction and mayhem and engulfing the sky over the capital's centre with heavy black smoke for more than an hour.

"What's the use? Nobody is hearing our voice. May those who did this burn in hell, each one of them," said another woman, who did want to be named.

Maher Moayad, 24, jumped out of bed when he heard gunfire. He lives on the second floor of a building across from the ministry on Nidal Street.

"I rushed out to the balcony and at that moment the explosion happened. I lost my balance and glass fell on me," he said, his arms cut.

"The flames and smoke were horrible; I was almost blinded."

In a carefully orchestrated attack, a garbage truck drove into the ministry parking lot after attackers, some dressed as Iraqi policemen, killed guards at two posts leading to the entrance, witnesses said.

The driver detonated his load against a low wall of concrete and sand barriers separating the parking lot from the back of the Al-Sadeer Hotel.

The blast gouged a big hole in the ground, destroyed the wall and reduced the more than two dozen pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles belonging to the ministry's security force into a pile of twisted and smouldering debris.

A ministry annex building was badly damaged and all the windows of the Sadeer, occupied by Western contractors and advisors involved in Iraq's reconstruction effort, were blown out. Curtains were left fluttering in the air.

Security guards on the hotel roof unleashed a hail of bullets for almost 15 minutes onto the parking lot right after the blast.