5 car bombs strike Baghdad targets

BAGHDAD -- Five car bombs exploded in Baghdad yesterday, targeting the Australian Embassy as well as Iraq's beleaguered security forces, amid a spate of ambushes, murders, and kidnappings that appeared aimed at disrupting national elections to be held in less than two weeks.

At least 23 people were reported killed across the country. Iraqi authorities put the death toll from the Baghdad bombings at 12, down from the toll of 26 cited by the US military from early reports. But deadly violence struck outside the capital as well, from the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk in the north, where two human-rights leaders were found shot to death, to the relatively peaceful southern city of Hilla, where a bomb killed an Iraqi police officer.

Carlos Valenzuela, the top UN official advising Iraq's elections commission, yesterday called the threat to election workers "high and serious." He said a sharp wave of violence early on Jan. 30, the day Iraqis are to elect a new national legislature, could derail the vote by scaring enough election workers off the job to close numerous polling stations.

Election workers who have been braving death threats will probably keep coming to work if the threat level remains constant, Valenzuela said in an earlier interview, but added, "If the threats do transform into attacks, there is a chance that you might not have people show up."

Yesterday's violence came a day before the reinauguration of President Bush for a second term. Bush has highlighted the coming elections as a sign of the success of his Iraq policy, and he told the Washington Post earlier this week that he believes American voters endorsed his handling of Iraq by reelecting him.

In Baghdad, four bombs went off in quick succession during the morning commute the day before Eid al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

They echoed across the city with dull thuds or deafening cracks, depending on the distance, hitting a variety of targets and underscoring a sense among residents of the Iraqi capital that no aspect of daily life is secure.

The first bomb shattered the morning quiet at 7 a.m., when a tractor-trailer cab rammed a security barrier outside the Australian Embassy. The blast shook nearby buildings and broke windows several blocks away. The US military said two Iraqis were killed.

Immediately after the explosion, fires burned in front of a high-rise embassy building and in the middle of the street. Dazed neighborhood residents emerged onto the empty four-lane road and discovered that a troubled local man who often slept on the street had been killed.

"My children woke up crying and they won't stop screaming," said a man who lives nearby and would identify himself only as Amir. "The windows of my house are all broken."

Australian ambassador Howard Brown said the bomber appeared to be targeting the building where security personnel live. Two Australian solders were among several people wounded, officials said.

At about 7:30 a.m., a second bomb struck outside a central Baghdad hospital. Initial American military reports said 18 people were killed and 15 wounded, but those numbers could not immediately be confirmed.

At about 8:15 a.m., a bomb exploded southwest of Baghdad International Airport, a key transportation hub for the US military as well as Iraqis that has become treacherous to reach because of frequent attacks on the airport road. Two Iraqi security personnel were killed and two others wounded, according to the US military.

Fifteen minutes later, a fourth bomb struck outside the former Muthanna airfield, a joint US-Iraqi military base in the heart of the city -- and just blocks from the fortified Green Zone -- that has been hit by at least three prevous suicide bombs. Two Iraqi security personnel and two Iraqi civilians were killed, and a US soldier wounded, the US military said.

Later in the afternoon, a fifth bomb hit Iraqi police as they lined up at a bank in a busy commercial section of the city to collect their paychecks, killing at least one person, Iraqi police told Reuters.

The insurgent group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which recently swore fealty to Osama bin Laden and renamed itself Al Qaeda in Iraq, issued a statement claiming responsibility for three suicide attacks in the capital, including the embassy bombing.

"A lion of monotheism and faith . . . carried out a martyrdom operation nearby the Australian Embassy," the group said in a statement posted on the Internet.

Insurgents have mounted a steady campaign against Iraqi police and soldiers, who despite being insufficiently trained and equipped are expected to take a visible role in guarding polling sites on Jan. 30, backed by 150,000 US troops.

There were also several attacks targeting Kurds and Shi'ite Muslims, the two groups that suffered most under former dictator Saddam Hussein and are most eager to vote in elections.

Sunni Muslims, who live in the most violent areas and form the bulk of the homegrown insurgency against the US presence, have called for the vote to be postponed.

In Baghdad, gunmen fired from a car at an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a leading Kurdish political party, killing one member and wounding another, party officials told the Associated Press.

In Kurdish northern Iraq, a police academy dean escaped an assassination attempt in Erbil by gunmen who killed a bystander, and the governor of the Dohuk region escaped a roadside bomb that targeted his convoy. Two human rights leaders were found slain yesterday in Kirkuk after being kidnapped Tuesday.

Violence also flared throughout the Sunni heartland in central and northwestern Iraq, as clashes broke out between US troops and insurgents in the restive cities of Mosul and Ramadi, and insurgents killed two police officers who were traveling with a Japanese engineer in central Iraq.

Gunmen stopped the car, shot the officers, and abducted the engineer, who worked at a power station in Baiji, Associated Press reported.

In the same area, a British security worker and an Iraqi colleague working to protect the power station were killed in an ambush on their convoy, according to the Briton's employer, London-based Janusian Security Risk Management. The company said another foreign national was missing; it was unclear if that referred to the Japanese engineer.

For the past year, insurgents have targeted foreign workers and consultants with kidnappings and beheadings in order to slow reconstruction in Iraq.

The Chinese government yesterday warned against travel to Iraq after eight Chinese laborers were depicted on a videotape being held by insurgents who accused them of working on a US construction project.

"Please don't rashly go to Iraq," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement, "in order to avoid unforeseeable incidents."

Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com.