Three car bombs struck the heart of Baghdad yesterday killing four people in the fourth wave of coordinated attacks in as many months, days after top ministers were quizzed in parliament over security.
Bombers meanwhile struck two churches in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul, wounding at least 40 people, among them schoolchildren, police and medics said.
Fourteen people were wounded in the Baghdad blasts, which came in quick succession during the height of the morning rush hour, an interior ministry official said.
The first bomb exploded in a car park opposite the Iranian embassy around 7:30 am (0430 GMT), the second minutes later near the foreign ministry and the third soon after in a car park by the ministry for émigrés and displaced persons.
"Dear God, how on earth do the police and soldiers let these booby-trapped vehicles through," wailed Um Ali, whose son Maki, 28, works in the car park hit by the third bomb and who was seriously wounded in the blast.
"A man left his car this morning and headed off almost at a run. When my son approached the vehicle, it blew up," she said, crumpled on the pavement.
Baraa al-Saraj, 26, who works inside the nearby Green Zone, the highly protected compound which houses the US and British embassies as well as government offices, said the bomb was clearly targeted at civil servants.