Baghdad: Authorities have released CCTV footage of the moment before Sunday's serial blasts, killing at least 42 people and wounding more than 200 in the Iraqi capital.
Two other attacks aimed at diplomatic targets were foiled. It seems suicide bombers were targetting the diplomatic enclave.
The bombings came two days after a chilling execution-style attack by gunmen who raided homes south of Baghdad, killing 24 people, many of them believed to be anti-al-Qaida fighters. The rise in bloodshed after a relative lull deepened fears that insurgents are seizing on the political uncertainty after last month's close parliamentary elections to sow further instability.
Sunday's blasts went off within minutes of each other - one near the Iranian Embassy and two others in an area that houses several embassies, including the Egyptian Consulate, and the German and Spanish embassies, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the city's operations command centre.
"These explosions targeted diplomatic missions," al-Moussawi said, saying the death toll was likely to rise. "It's a terrorist act."
The force of the blasts shook buildings and rattled windows miles away. AP Television News footage showed civilians outside the Iranian Embassy loading casualties into police vehicles and ambulances. Stunned victims in bloody clothes fled the scene as smoke rose.
One man was cradling a small girl wearing a white dress in his arms.
Hassan Karim, 32, who owns a clothing shop near one of the bomb sites, said the first blast shattered windows and knocked all the shelves off the walls. He ran outside after the second explosion just minutes later.
"I saw children screaming while their mothers held their hands or clutched them to their chest," he said. "Cars were crashing into each other in streets, trying to find a way to flee."
The carnage might have been worse. Officials say they thwarted two additional attacks.
Security forces shot and killed a man wearing a suicide belt in a fourth bomb-rigged car near the former German embassy, which is now a bank in the capital's Karrada district, home to several other diplomatic missions, al-Moussawi said.
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