Suicide bombers struck four times in Baghdad's morning rush-hour yesterday, killing more than 34 and wounding 224 in the city's bloodiest day since Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
In a series of apparently co-ordinated attacks, car bombs yesterday exploded within an hour of each other at the International Committee of the Red Cross and three police stations across the city. A fifth attacker was foiled outside another police station.
The US military said one American was killed and six other soldiers wounded in the blasts. Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim, said 26 civilians and eight policemen had been killed.
Responding to the attacks, President Bush said: "These people will kill Iraqis, they don't care who they kill, they just want to kill, and we will find them." He pledged that the US would "stay the course" and ensure the emergence of a democratic and stable Iraq.
Twelve people died in the attack on the ICRC when an ambulance packed with explosives detonated as it entered the gates of the Red Cross building.
"There were bodies everywhere," said an ICRC employee who was in the building when the bomber struck.
The twisted wreckage of the ambulance smouldered among a street filled with shattered glass and body-parts.
At the three police stations struck there were similar scenes of devastation, as the suicide bombers hit in rapid succession, in one instance disguising the vehicle to look like a construction rig to gain access to the station.
Yesterday, the ICRC expressed outrage at the bombing. "This is a terrible thing that has happened," said Ms Nada Doumani, an ICRC spokeswoman in Baghdad. "We only have a few foreigners due to the security situation, so we must rely on our Iraqi staff."
The ICRC says it is withdrawing the remaining non-Iraqi staff from the country and is reviewing its activities there.
Ms Antonella Notari, ICRC chief spokeswoman at the organisation's headquarters in Geneva, said: "We are deeply shocked . . . because it is an attack against the ICRC . . . and that means, of course, a deliberate attack against our protective emblem and against our work."
Many aid agencies scaled back their work in Iraq following the attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last August that killed 22 people including the top UN envoy to Iraq, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Yesterday's bombings follow a rocket attack on Sunday on the heavily-guarded Rashid Hotel, where US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, was staying. A US colonel was killed and 17 people wounded.
It is not known who is behind the latest surge of violence, although their aim of disrupting the reconstruction process is clear enough. US officials are pointing the finger at al-Qaeda operatives who have entered the country, Saddam loyalists, or religious extremists.
US Brig Gen Mark Hertling said at a press conference: "There are intelligence indicators that these attacks seem to have the mode of operations of foreign fighters."
In the fifth, foiled attack, police officers stopped an apparent suicide bomber carrying a Syrian passport before he could detonate his vehicle.
"He's a foreign fighter. He had a Syrian passport and the policemen say that as he was shot and fell that he said he was Syrian," the general said.
Two US soldiers were killed and two wounded on Sunday in Baghdad after their patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb, the US military said.
Later on Sunday, another US soldier was killed and two wounded in a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib prison, outside the capital.
The attacks raised to 113 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since President Bush declared major hostilities over.