Three car bombs ripped through Baghdad this morning in a co-ordinated attack that ended a period of relative calm and killed more than 30 people.
The suicide attacks were all in western Baghdad. One was outside the Iranian Embassy in the Karadat Mariam district, another was close to the house of the German Ambassador in al-Ruad Square, in the Mansour area, near other embassies. A third, also in Mansour, was near the Egyptian Embassy.
"I heard the sound of the explosion and ran out into the street to see a big cloud of dust and smoke," said Ali Sanz Ali, 26, a labourer working near the Iranian Embassy.
He said that cement walls outside the heavily guarded building had been flattened and "on the other side of the street many cars had been destroyed and burned. You could see the dead people sitting in the chairs of the cars behind the steering wheel with smoke coming out of the cars."
According to the Ministry of Information, there were a number of other attempted attacks. Police intercepted a car laden with explosives that may have been targeting an organisation protecting embassies, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeted police patrols.
About 35 people were killed in the attacks and 240 wounded, it was reported, although officials warned that many people were in a critical condition and the death toll was likely to rise.
American and Iraqi authorities have emphasised the improvement in the general security situation in Iraq, but these so-called spectacular attacks have been happening with deadly regularity.
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