Two bombs exploded in front of industry minister Fawzi Al Hariri's convoy killing three bodyguards, followed by a massive car bomb at a nearby automotive parts market that killed nine people and wounded 75, security officials said.
The minister said that he was not in the convoy when the bombs went off. "At the time of the attack, I was with the prime minister [Nuri Al Maliki]," he said.
The cars, he added, had been out to fill up with fuel when they came under attack. "They were returning to the ministry when the bombs exploded," he said.
The blast comes as political leaders attempt to thrash out the specifics of Maliki's latest plan to stop the country sliding into chaos.
The plan calls for the formation of neighborhood committees to field complaints to the central government as well as a renewed effort against illegal armed groups.
Parliamentarians have cautiously welcomed the initiative but say that practical steps need to be implemented.
Since Maliki took office in May, he has put forward national reconciliation initiatives as well as launched a multi-phase plan to restore security to Baghdad, but the violence continues.
The car bomb in the gritty southern neighborhood of Camp Sarah destroyed dozens of shops and damaged two buildings, while leaving dead and wounded scattered around the streets.
Until the ambulances arrived, residents were seen loading the injured into private cars and ferrying them to nearby hospitals.
One woman crouched by her dead son and would not let rescue workers take him away.
Firemen soon appeared and extinguished the flaming buildings, followed soon afterwards by US soldiers who established a cordon around the area.
Elsewhere in the city, a car bomb in the violence-plagued neighborhood of Dura killed one person and wounded several others, while another bomb exploded in middle class Karrada, wounding two people.
Just south of the capital in the village of Jisr Al Diyala, gunmen launched an assault on a police station, killing one policeman and setting fire to several police cars and to a section of the police station.
Police also reported finding more corpses in Baghdad early Wednesday, the grim harvest of the midnight killings carried out by death squads, many believed to be Shiite, in the ongoing sectarian dirty war.
Seven bodies, all bearing gunshot wounds, were found in predominantly Sunni western Baghdad, while police downstream of the capital in Kut reported fishing four corpses out of the Tigris River, all showing signs of torture and having being shot in the head.
One of the bodies was that of a woman.
US and Iraqi troops have launched an operation to restore security in Baghdad that includes house to house searches for illegal weapons, but have yet to venture into Sadr City, a militia bastion in east Baghdad.
In the south of the country, the situation has sufficiently improved to the point where two provinces have been turned over to the governors.
However, challenges to their authority exist, especially from militias and tribesmen.
British forces in Basra, meanwhile, reported coming under fire during an early morning raid to seize illegal weapons and arrest three suspects.
"There were some attacks launched on the multinational forces resulting in slight damage to one of the vehicles and one of the attackers was killed," said Captain Tane Dunlop, responding to reports that a British tank had been disabled.
British forces in Basra have embarked on their own clean up campaign in Iraq's second city, with a combination of operations targeting suspects as well as neighborhood clean-up and public works initiatives.
Basra has become increasingly unstable, with another British soldier dying Monday when mortars rained down on their base.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
To add a comment,
Please log in:
Don't have an account?
Register now to comment on stories and stay up to date on important events and issues in the Middle East with our newsletter.