The blasts ripped through diplomatic and civilian areas, state-owned Iraqiya television said. The worst bombing left at least 59 people dead near the Foreign Ministry, the Associated Press said. Another near the Finance Ministry killed 28, AFP reported.
Al-Qaeda and supporters of the late former leader Saddam Hussein were responsible for the assaults, President Jalal Talabani said in an e-mailed statement. He urged Iraqi security forces to be “more alert.”
The mid-morning attacks underscore the fragility of Iraq’s security since US combat troops withdrew from urban areas on June 30 and as it prepares for elections in January.
The single previous worst incident this year occurred on June 24 when 69 people were killed when a bomb tore through a market in Baghdad’s Shiite Muslim Sadr City neighborhood.
There may have been as many as seven blasts today, caused by truck and car bombs and mortar shells, news agencies and state-owned media reported.
The first explosion was heard shortly after 10 a.m. local time near the Finance Ministry in northern Baghdad, AP said.
Minutes later, a second bombing targeted a joint Iraqi police and army patrol just outside the Foreign Ministry near the fortified diplomatic area, AP reported. Around the same time, mortars struck inside the diplomatic zone, it said.
Plumes of Smoke
Iraqiya television broadcast footage of the capital showing plumes of gray smoke rising over rooftops.
Two al-Qaeda members were arrested in the city’s western district of Mansour, Major General Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi Army Baghdad’s operations said in a statement. A truck laden with explosives was detained in the city’s al-Salhiyeh district, he said.
Six years ago to the day, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 other people were killed in a truck bombing outside the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
That 2003 bombing was one of the first major assaults in the country after the toppling of Hussein, and marked a shift toward mass-casualty attacks.
Among the most deadly attacks in Iraq since then have been a bombing that ripped through a pet market in Baghdad in February, 2008, killing 98 people, and a suicide truck bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar that killed more than 150 in March, 2007.
January Elections
Violence has decreased across Iraq in recent months, though attacks have persisted on security forces and Shiite Muslims and on targets in the ethnically divided majority-Kurdish northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
US and Iraqi commanders have said they expect violence to increase as the January elections approach.
US troops withdrew from urban areas under a security agreement outlining the American pullout by the end of 2011. President Barack Obama has said all US combat troops will depart from Iraq by the end of August 2010, leaving as many as 50,000 US troops in training and advising roles.
There was no immediate statement of responsibility for today’s attacks.
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Nighttime, early morning bombings in Baghdad kill 27
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