Baghdad, December 09: Five powerful car bombs rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 127 people, many of them students, and wounding 448 in the third co-ordinated massacre to devastate the capital since August.
The attacks came hours before the Iraqi presidency council fixed a new date for the country's crucial parliamentary elections on 6th March.
The first attack occurred at about 10:25 a.m. (0725GMT) when a car loaded with explosives went off at the park of the new seat of the Finance Ministry after a massive truck bombing on 19th August badly damaged its original building in Waziriya district.
Seconds later, another car bombing took place near an intersection close to the Interior Ministry in eastern Baghdad, while a third car bombing detonated in the park of a court near the Institution of Fine Arts in Baghdad's western district of Mansour.
The bombing at the court building apparently targeted the part of the building occupied by the federal court which moved recently from its original place in the building of the Justice Ministry in Salhiyah which was destroyed by a massive truck bombing on 25th October.
A minute later, a fourth car bombing carried out by a minibus loaded with explosives went off at the intersection of the Nidaa mosque, near the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in the al-Qahira neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad.
The powerful blast destroyed dozens of civilian cars which were crowded at the intersection.
"I saw dozens of cars were charred and many bodies were scattered at the site and some parts of human bodies were thrown on the roofs of nearby buildings," Jamal al-Obiedi, a witness at the scene said.
Footage of the Iraqi local television al-Sharqiya showed the finance ministry bombing destroyed parts of its building and many old houses in the nearby impoverished neighborhood were damaged.
A total of 112 people were killed and 425 wounded by the four coordinated bombings in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said in its latest toll reports.
Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a police patrol in Baghdad's southern district of Doura, killing 15 people, including three policemen, and wounding 23 people.
The latest wave of deadly bombings is the third of such attacks since 19th August when suicide truck bombings struck the ministries of foreign affairs and finance, and the attacks on 25th Oct when insurgents hit the buildings of Baghdad Provincial Council and the Justice Ministry.
The attacks came hours before the Iraqi Presidency Council announced that 6th March, 2010 is the date of holding the crucial parliamentary elections in the country.
The presidency decision came two days after Iraqi lawmakers unanimously agreed on controversial amendments on the electoral law that would govern the war-torn country's national elections.
Originally, the election was slated for 16th January, but months of debate among Iraqi politicians to pass the amendments needed to the law in an attempt to reform the elections process to make it more representative for Iraqis inside and outside the country.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned Tuesday's bloody attacks, renewing his accusation to the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath party and the al-Qaida militants for committing such deadly attacks.
"The terrorist gangs backed by both remnants of Baath party outside Iraq and al-Qaida, committed another massacre carrying the same black fingerprints which have always plunged into the blood of innocents," Maliki said in a statement issued by his office in the afternoon.
Maliki also said that the attacks came after the Iraqi parliament succeeded in passing the last stumbling block toward the country's landmark elections, confirming that "Iraq's foes are only aimed at inciting chaos in the country and halting any progress in the political process."
The number of deaths by violence in the war-ravaged country had dropped to its lowest level in November since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, when official monthly figures showed that 122 people had been killed in the country.
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