US officials said it appeared the attackers had planned to detonate the car bomb first -- then the two pedestrians would blow themselves up in the middle of troops, police, and rescue workers rushing to the scene.
But an Iraqi policeman shot one of the bombers, setting off his explosive vest, a US statement said. His cohort was wounded by shrapnel from the blast before he could detonate his own vest, the statement said.
The surviving attacker was in critical condition at a US military hospital in the Green Zone, the military said.
Some of the victims wounded in the suicide attack may have been hit by the gunfire, according to officials at Yarmouk Hospital.
An Internet statement in the name of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for yesterday's attacks, but the authenticity could not be confirmed.
Would-be bombers are rarely captured in Iraq. A 19-year-old Saudi was taken into custody after he somehow survived the explosion of his fuel tanker in December. A Yemeni was arrested in 2003 when his car bomb failed to detonate at a Baghdad police station.
There was no word on the identity of the failed bomber, but his arrest could yield valuable intelligence on the shadowy network of Islamic extremists -- many of them believed to be foreigners linked to Al Qaeda.
In another blow to the terror network, about 30 suspected Al Qaeda members were arrested in the past week, including a key suspect in this month's killing of Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif and attacks on senior diplomats from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the US command said.
Khamis Abdul-Fahdawi, known as Abu Seba, was captured Saturday following operations in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad, the military said. He is a suspect in the ''attacks against diplomats of Bahrain, Pakistan, and the recent murder of Egyptian envoy" Sherif, the US statement said.
