An explosion just outside the US Green Zone headquarters in Baghdad killed 25 people as officials met to name an Iraqi government for the June 30 takeover. The blast was at the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, close to Iraq's Foreign Ministry and an entrance to the Green Zone compound where the US-led administration in Iraq based. Widespread violence poses the greatest challenge to the interim government's efforts to organize Iraq's first free elections in the new year, international agencies commented.