At least 127 people were killed and 448 people were wounded when five large car bombs shook Baghdad today, the latest high-profile blasts apparently aimed at sensitive Iraqi government buildings, police said.
The explosions rattled buildings across the capital, and undermined a fragile sense of security ahead of an auction of oilfield contracts this weekend, when executives from top oil firms will fly into town, and before an election next year.
Several people died and five were wounded in a first blast in a southern Baghdad suburb, police said.
Others were killed and wounded in at least three successive explosions in the city centre half an hour later, police said.
"Civilians and security personnel have definitely been kiled. We all announce more details as we have them," Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said.
Police sources said there had been five explosions, two near judicial buildings, one near a university, another near in a central Baghdad commercial district and the earlier one in the south. Smoke billowed from at least two sites.
The attacks were the first large, high-profile explosions in Baghdad since October 25th, when two massive truck bombs killed 155 people at the justice ministry and Baghdad governorate headquarters.
A smaller blast, which some police officials said might have involved the accidental explosion of a hidden stockpile of munitions, killed seven children at a school in the Shia slum of Sadr City yesterday.
The major bomb attacks in the heart of the Iraqi capital in October and a similar earlier attack in August marked a change of tactics for Iraq's insurgency.
Rather than stage frequent smaller-scale attacks against soft targets like marketplaces or mosques, insurgent groups like al-Qaeda now appear to be aiming for spectacular and less frequent strikes against heavily defended government targets.
Overall violence has fallen dramatically since 2003. The health ministry in November reported the lowest monthly death toll of Iraqi civilians in six years.
Meanwhile, Iraq's presidency council has set March 6th as the date for next year's parliamentary election, and not February 27th as widely expected. Iraq's next general election should have been held by the end of January according to the constitution, but a law needed for it to take place was held up by protracted political wrangling.
Both Shia and Sunni parties opposed holding the election close to the Shia festival of Arbain, which runs until mid-February. Thousands of Shias are expected to walk to the holy city of Kerbala from all over Iraq during the holiday.
Reuters