AFP, Baghdad, April 4, 2010 – Three suicide car bombs targeting the Iranian and Egyptian embassies rocked Baghdad on Sunday, killing 30 people in a surge of violence as Iraqis struggle to form a government four weeks after elections.
Officials said the near-simultaneous blasts, which a minister said bore the mark of Al-Qaeda, also wounded 224 people. Witnesses reported mayhem as ambulances and emergency workers raced to the sites of the explosions.
The capital’s security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said two blasts were ’suicide attacks against the Egyptian and Iranian embassies,’ while a third struck at an intersection near the German and Syrian missions.
The Spanish embassy, which is next to Germany’s, was also damaged.
Among the dead were the Egyptian mission’s Iraqi head of security and an Iraqi security guard at the German embassy.
Atta said Iraqi security forces had stopped a bomb-laden car in Masbah, central Baghdad, which was apparently going to attack the headquarters of security police tasked with protecting foreign embassies.
The driver was arrested and the device was defused, he said.
’It looks like (Al-Qaeda),’ Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP. ’I really feel it’s early, however, unless we ensure the investigation is complete’ to say for sure who masterminded the bombings, he added.
’They bear the same marks of previous attacks, in the timing, the targeting, the simultaneous attacks on different targets in different places to have maximum impact,’ Zebari said of co-ordinated bombings in August, October, December and January that killed more than 400 people.
The two bombs that battered the diplomatic west Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansur were followed soon afterwards by a third huge explosion outside the Iranian embassy in the city centre.
The explosions occurred within minutes of each other, sparking bursts of gunfire and sending plumes of smoke billowing across the city.
Said Mohammed, who was close to the blast which badly damaged the Egyptian embassy, said guards had tried to stop the attacker.
’Three security guards shouted at the truck to stop moving, and opened fire on the driver,’ said Mohammed, who then turned to nearby Iraqi army officers in anger and shouted: ’How did the truck get here?’
Shards of glass covered the street outside the embassy, the entrance of which was now a crater five metres (16 feet) across.
An AFP correspondent, meanwhile, counted five bodies at the scene of the Iranian embassy blast — three trapped inside burning cars and two being carried into ambulances. One body had no legs.
’The explosion was really strong,’ said Abu Ahmed, a taxi driver who was in a shop when the blast happened.
’They never kill ministers, officials or heads of state. They kill taxi drivers, public employees and shopkeepers. How much longer will this last?’
Iran said the attack caused no casualties among its staff.
France led international condemnation of the bombings, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner calling them ’barbaric.’
The attacks came as Iraqi political parties negotiate to form a government, nearly a month after a general election that left four main blocs without sufficient seats to form a parliamentary majority on its own.
Former premier Iyad Allawi, whose bloc finished first in the March 7 ballot, has accused Iran of seeking to prevent him becoming prime minister again by inviting all major parties except his secular bloc to Tehran.
Security officials had warned that protracted coalition building could give insurgents an opportunity to further destabilise the country.
’This is very bad — if the political parties do not get an agreement fast, we are going to return to sectarian war,’ said off-duty army officer Ziad, 47, of the confessional bloodshed that blighted Iraq in 2006 and 2007.
His car was just 30 metres (90 feet) from the Iranian embassy blast. The vehicle’s windows were shattered and the front was crushed by the force of the explosion. Ziad escaped with minor head injuries.
Sunday’s violence follows an attack on Saturday blamed on Al-Qaeda south of Baghdad in which security officials said 25 villagers linked to an anti-Qaeda militia were rounded up and shot execution-style by men in army uniforms.
Although the frequency of attacks has dropped significantly since peaking in 2006 and 2007, figures released on Thursday showed 367 Iraqis were killed in violence last month — the highest number this year.