Car bombs rock Baghdad

Baghdad: Car bombs killed at least 127 people in Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, leaving pools of blood, charred buses and scattered body parts in a brutal reminder of the threat from Iraq's stubborn insurgency.

The blasts, most detonated by suicide bombers, ripped through crowded areas close to government buildings, which should have been under tight security after previous devastating attacks in the capital in recent months.

The bombings undermine Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's claims to have brought security to the country before a national election now scheduled for March 6, and could rattle foreign oil chiefs due in Iraq this weekend for a major contract auction.

"We had entered a shop seconds before the blast, the ceiling caved in on us, and we lost consciousness. Then I heard screams and sirens all around," said Mohammad Abdul Ridha, one of the 425 wounded in the series of at least four blasts.

Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qasim Al Mousawi gave a lower death toll of 63. It was not possible to explain the discrepancy with the numbers provided by police sources. The Health Ministry said it was difficult to determine the exact number because many bodies had been blown to pieces.

Smoke billowed and sirens wailed as emergency workers removed the dead in black body bags. Pools of blood had formed next to burnt-out minibuses, police vehicles and dozens of crumpled cars at one bomb site, the blast leaving a huge crater.

"What these gangs are doing are criminal acts which express their bankruptcy and disappointment ... after what the Iraqi people and its political powers have achieved," Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said in a statement.

Analysts said the attacks, similar to spectacular bombings in the Iraqi capital in October and August, were meant to shake faith in Iraq's Shiite-led government.

The earlier blasts were blamed on Sunni Islamist insurgents and members of Saddam Hussain's outlawed Baath party.

"It's the same style and the same vital targets. There is one political motive — to show that the government has failed to provide security," said analyst Hazim Al Nuaimi.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the spate of "horrendous" bombings. "I am very shocked. This is just unacceptable," the UN secretary general told reporters.

The White House has also condemned the attacks.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Iraqi leaders who recently passed an elections law are moving the country in the right direction, and that "there are clearly those who are threatened by that."