BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber walked up to Iraqi soldiers lining up for lunch at a base west of Baghdad on Thursday and set off his explosives belt, killing at least 16 troops and wounding 50, an Iraqi army officer said.

The midday attack took place at the joint base shared by Iraqi soldiers and U.S. troops in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Habbaniyah, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) west of Baghdad, the officer said.

The bomber approached a group of soldiers heading for a base canteen after their daily training and detonated his explosives near the entrance, the officer said in a telephone interview from the Habbaniyah base.

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not allowed to release the information.

He described the explosion as "thunderous, leaving bodies and pieces of human flesh scattered all over near the canteen."

It's not immediately clear if any U.S. soldiers were at or near the scene of the blast. The American military had no immediate information on the attack.

It also was not immediately known how the attacker was able to evade the base security and approach the troops.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack but suicide bombings are a tactic used by al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents.

Habbaniyah lies in Iraq's predominantly Sunni western Anbar province, which was a major al-Qaida stronghold and a focus of the insurgency in the first years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion routed Saddam Hussein.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)