127 dead as bombers aim for heart of government

Car bombers yesterday killed as many as 127 people in Baghdad in a series of attacks that left the city's streets strewn with the wreckage of burning vehicles and the charred bodies of the dead.

The five bombs, including three that were detonated by suicide bombers, exploded in succession across the Iraqi capital over the course of an hour yesterday morning, targeting a mosque, a market, a government ministry, an educational college and a court. Some 425 people were wounded.

The coordinated assault is likely to be the work of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which has adopted the tactic of launching devastating bombing attacks about every six weeks to maximise political and psychological impact. One aim is to discredit the government's claim that it has greatly improved security in the last couple of years. Some 155 people were killed in the last big attack by bombers on 25 October and over 122 in an earlier assault in August. The Iraqi foreign, justice and trade ministries were all targeted.

The sound of screams and police sirens followed the detonation of each bomb as a cloud of oily black smoke from burning vehicles rose over the capital. Among the buildings hit was the headquarters of the Rafidain Bank which was housing the Finance Ministry, whose building was damaged by a bomb in August.

Although the government and its critics have both claimed that the security forces have been infiltrated, suicide bombings are very difficult to prevent and US troops were unable to stop far more numerous bombings when they were in control of Baghdad. One of the bombs yesterday was carried inside an ambulance, and several judges were killed when a suicide bomber drove into the compound of a court beside the zoo in west Baghdad. The streets of central Baghdad tend to be packed with pedestrians and vehicles so civilian casualties will always be high. Government ministries and department have highly vulnerable queues of people outside waiting for permits or paperwork.

The bombings show that al-Qa'ida, while not the force it was, still has the ability to pool its resources and co-ordinate spectacular attacks such as the one yesterday. But al-Qa'ida depends on the Sunni community that was badly defeated by the far more numerous Shia in the sectarian civil war in 2006 to 2007. It is unlikely that the Sunni would want to fight another war.

The attacks came as a date was finally announced for the next election, which will be staged on 6 March. It had been delayed because of Sunni and Kurdish objections to the way the polls were being staged. The outcome is likely to be the re-election of the Shia-Kurdish coalition that has dominated Iraqi politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The al-Qa'ida bombings are unlikely to change the course of the election campaign, though the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be criticised for failing to improve security to anything like the extent that he says he has. In a statement he read yesterday, Mr Maliki said: "The timing of the cowardly attacks, after parliament overcame the last obstacle ahead of the elections, confirm that the enemies of Iraq and its people aim to sow chaos in the country."

There is no reason that the elections should be affected by these attacks, although they could be interpreted as a sign that the Sunni Arabs of Iraq will not allow themselves to be marginalised and will respond violently to any attempt to do so.

The Sunni fought the US occupation from 2003 to 2007 but then allied themselves with US forces as they came under intense pressure from Shia death squads and militias.

Iraq's misery: The endless insurgency

8 December 2009 Two powerful car bombs exploded outside the offices of the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad Provincial Council building, killing at least 155 people. One of the blasts also destroyed St George's Church, the only Anglican church in Iraq. More than 20 children on a bus on their way to a daycare centre next to the Justice Ministry were among the victims. Local politicians said the blasts were intended to destroy the credibility of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and faith in his ability to make Iraq safe after the departure of US forces.

19 August 2009 "Bloody Wednesday": coordinated bomb and mortar attacks went off at 10.45am outside government buildings and elsewhere across the city, on the sixth anniversary of the bombing of the United Nations compound in Baghdad, which brought the UN's mission in Iraq to a sudden end. At least 101 people died.

14 August 2007 Nearly 800 inhabitants of the village of Qahtaniya, in the far north of the country, died and 1,500 were injured in the deadliest attack of the Iraqi insurgency to date, blown up by four suicide truck bombs, one of them a fuel tanker. Tension had been growing between Sunni Muslims and the Yazidi, a Kurdish minority stigmatised as heretics by extremists, who were the victims of the attack.

18 April 2007 In an attack on Shia areas of Baghdad which gave residents grim reminders of the bloodiest days of the insurgency, nearly 200 people died when five car bombs exploded across the city.

23 November 2006 A series of car bombs and mortar attacks struck Sadr City, Baghdad's huge Shia slum, killing at least 215 people and injuring 257 more. The attacks were timed for the day when residents of the slum were commemorating the life of Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the high Shia cleric killed by Saddam Hussein's regime.