Insurgents kill dozens in Iraq bomb attacks

Iraqi insurgents carried out five car bombings across Baghdad yesterday that killed about a dozen people.

Iraqi insurgents carried out five car bombings across Baghdad yesterday that killed about a dozen people.

The US military put the death toll from the day's Baghdad bombings at 26, saying the number was based on initial reports at the scene. Iraqi officials gave a lower toll - 12 people.

The attacks - four within a span of 90 minutes - came despite stepped-up US and Iraqi measures to heighten security ahead of this month's elections, which Sunni Muslim insurgents have threatened to disrupt.

A group claiming links with al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the first of the day's blasts, which occurred about 7 a.m. at the Australian Embassy in the capital. A truck packed with explosives blew up outside the concrete barriers in front of the embassy, killing two people and wounding several, including two Australian soldiers.

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A half-hour after the embassy blast, another car bomb exploded at a police station next to a hospital in eastern Baghdad. The US military said 18 were killed there, but the Iraqi Interior Ministry put the death toll at six, including a policewoman.

A third car bombing struck at the main gate to an Iraqi military recruiting center located at a disused airport in central Baghdad. Police said the driver told guards he was delivering potatoes and detonated his explosives at the gate, killing three Iraqi soldiers and injuring one American.

The US military also said a car bomb detonated southwest of Baghdad International Airport, killing two Iraqi security guards. The fifth car bomb exploded around noon near a Shiite mosque and a bank in north Baghdad, killing one person and injuring another, police said.

Also in the capital, insurgents in a car fired on an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing one of its members and wounding another, party officials said.

Elsewhere, an Iraqi police officer was killed Wednesday in another car bombing in the largely Shiite city of Hillah south of Baghdad, the Polish military said.

US and Iraqi officials had predicted an escalation in violence as the elections approach, with Sunni insurgents seeking to frighten people into staying away from the polls. Sunni clerics have also called for a boycott because of the presence of US and other foreign forces on Iraqi soil.