Three car bombs exploded in quick succession at a busy bus station in the Iraqi capital and a nearby hospital on Wednesday during the morning rush-hour, killing at least 43 people. While Baghdad suffered its deadliest attack this year, 11 other people were killed as rebels left a trail of blood across the country.
The bombings, which broke a brief lull in major insurgent violence, came two days after politicians failed to draft a new constitution due to sharp differences on key issues, raising concerns of fresh political turmoil.
Two car bombs exploded 10 minutes apart at the bus station in the central district of Al-Nahda, leaving behind a sea of broken bodies, and a third blew up near Al-Kindi Hospital in the same neighbourhood.
At least 43 people were killed and another 76 wounded in the blasts, an Interior Ministry official and medics said.
State-owned Iraqia television later said that the Transport Ministry guards have arrested four men suspected of carrying out the bombings. The four had remote control detonators on them when they were picked up, it said.
Traffic policeman Ali Jassem, who witnessed the bombings, said the explosions were synchronised.
"This was organised - they were trying to kill as many people as possible," an enraged Jassim said, his shirt splattered with blood from carrying away many of the wounded.
Jassim said he was rushing to the scene of the first explosion to help his colleagues in clearing a path through the panicking crowd so ambulances could pass when a second bomb exploded at the terminal entrance.
This blast wounded two of his colleagues whom he took to the nearby Al-Kindi Hospital where an anxious crowd was gathering to hear news of their relatives.
"We were just coming out of the hospital and saw police holding people back so the wounded could enter and suddenly another bomb exploded just 15 metres from the entrance of the emergency room," he told AFP.
Jassim said the third blast killed his two wounded colleagues.
One of the bombs at the Al-Nahda bus station left a two-metre wide crater on the road, while mangled remains of a police car could be seen lying on top of another vehicle. About 20 cars were destroyed by massive explosions.
At least three buses were gutted by fire. The vehicles would have been packed with passengers at the time of the explosion.
Al-Nahda is a major bus station, which links Baghdad with virtually the rest of Iraq.
Police fired warning shots outside the hospital to try to evacuate the area, fearful of suicide bombers targeting the gathering crowds.
Burnt out cars and dismembered corpses lay in pools of blood on the street near the entrance to the hospital's emergency department, while surrounding houses were also damaged by the blast.
"My two nephews were sitting outside my house when the bomb exploded - they were just boys, now they are dead," said Zakia Mohammed, 60, whose house stands next to the hospital.
Al Qaeda has issued a number of Internet threats against those who plan to participate in a scheduled referendum on a constitution in mid-October.
"One aim of the bombers is to put fear in the hearts of Iraqi people and the other intention is to trigger a government collapse," government spokesman Leith Kubba said on Iraqia television.
Wednesday's bombings came after attempts to write the country's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution by a Monday deadline failed, prompting the parliament to give politicians another week to complete the charter.
Iraq's interim law stipulates that if the new one-time extension is not met, the 275-member parliament would have to be dissolved. Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari downplayed the potential crisis.
"The demography of Iraq and its complicated political map" should be taken into consideration, Jaafari said. "The delay was for one week only and the pending points do not need a longer period."
Many panellists, however, said that intractable differences remained between the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish groups on federalism, role of Islam and sharing of national (oil) wealth.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a vocal opponent of capital punishment, meanwhile, refused to sign the first death warrants issued since Saddam's ousting in 2003.
Jaafari had announced on Tuesday that Talabani has signed the warrants for three al Qaeda-linked men convicted of killing policemen and raping women.
Six Iraqi soldiers assigned to protect oil pipelines in northern Iraq were killed on Wednesday as masked gunmen ambushed their patrol vehicle and opened fire, Kirkuk police said.
Also in northern Iraq, three truck drivers were killed, including a Turk, in a rebel attack in Baiji, police said, while a police officer was shot dead in Samarra. In Baghdad, a home-made bomb blast in Al-Obeidi district left one dead.
Five US soldiers died across Iraq in a series of incidents this week, the US military said, taking to some 1,850 the total American military deaths since the March 2003 invasion, according to Pentagon figures.
In London, the families of 17 British soldiers killed in the Iraq conflict launched a legal bid in London on Wednesday to secure an independent inquiry into the legality of going to war against the Baghdad regime.
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