Baghdad car bombings kill dozens

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Suicide bombers struck the Red Cross headquarters and three police stations across Baghdad on Monday, killing about 40 people and injuring more than 200 in a coordinated terror spree that stunned the Iraqi capital on the first day of the Islamic holy month of fasting, Ramadan.

The string of car bombings, all within about 45 minutes, was the bloodiest attack yet in the city of 5 million by insurgents targeting the American-led occupation and those perceived as working with it.

In past weeks, bombers have carried out heavy suicide bombings but only in single strikes.

President Bush said U.S. progress in Iraq is making insurgents more "desperate" and fueling attacks.

Sitting next to civilian U.S. Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer in the Oval Office, Bush said he remains "even more determined to work with the Iraqi people" to restore peace and civility to the war-torn nation.

Defense officials said they believe loyalists of fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were responsible for the wave of bombings. At the Pentagon, officials described the two days of violence as a significant spike in attacks that showed some level of coordination -- though how much was still unclear.

One American soldier was killed in one of the police station attacks and six U.S. troops were wounded, the military said. Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, the deputy interior minister, put the Iraqi death toll at 34, including 26 civilians and eight police but not the attackers.

The bombings came hours after clashes around Baghdad killed three U.S. soldiers overnight, and a day after insurgents hit a hotel full of U.S. occupation officials with a barrage of rockets, killing a U.S. lieutenant colonel and wounding 18 others.

Baghdad's al Baya'a police station in the al-Doura neighborhood saw the most deaths, reportedly 15, including the American. Since Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 113 U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire.

'You're collaborators!'

Ibrahim blamed foreign fighters for the assault, saying a fifth, aborted car bombing was attempted by a man captured with a Syrian passport. "Some countries, unfortunately, are trying to send people to conduct attacks," the deputy interior minister said, without naming those nations.

That fifth bomber was kept by officers from detonating his Land Cruiser at a station in the "New Baghdad" district. "He was shouting, 'Death to the Iraqi police! You're collaborators!'" said police Sgt. Ahmed Abdel Sattar.

At the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in central Baghdad, witnesses said a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed vehicle, apparently an ambulance, right up to security barriers outside the building at about 8:30 a.m. The vehicle detonated, blowing down the Red Cross' front wall and devastating the interior.

Then, in quick succession, explosions went off at the al-Baya'a, al-Shaab and al-Khadra police stations. Ambulances, sirens wailing, crisscrossed the city all morning.

"From what our indications are, none of those bombers got close to the target," U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling said. But the explosions outside police stations left streetscapes of broken, bloody bodies and twisted, burning automobiles.

Hertling said he believed the attacks may have been timed with the start of Ramadan to heighten tensions during the fasting month, when Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight hours.

"We don't understand why somebody would attack the Red Cross," Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani said. "We have not been involved in politics."

Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shiite Muslim member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said the United States must speed up the training of Iraqi police and soldiers and employ ruthless measures to crush the insurgency.

"There is no doubt about it that we need to change the rules of engagement with these people," al-Rabii told CNN. "The rules of engagement now are too lenient."