40 killed in series of Baghdad bomb attacks

Three car bomb attacks in central Baghdad killed more than 40 people today and wounded about 90 in the deadliest attacks in the capital in weeks.

A suicide car bomber targeting policemen detonated his vehicle outside the Nahda bus station in central Baghdad, one of the city's major transit points, the US military said.

A second car exploded inside the station parking lot near buses that carry passengers to Amarah and Basra, Shiite-dominated cities in southern Iraq, said police Capt. Nabil Abdul-Qadeer.

Another suicide bomber exploded his vehicle near the Kindi Hospital about 30 minutes later as many of the wounded were arriving for treatment, police said.

It was deadliest series of single-day suicide bombings in Baghdad in weeks, although suicide attacks with far lower death tolls occur here regularly. Twenty-five people died in a suicide blast on 10 July at an army recruiting center in Baghdad. On 13 July a car bomb in Baghdad killed 27 people, 18 of them teenagers or children and one American soldier.

The latest attacks in the capital occurred shortly before Iraqi leaders started a meeting to try to finish the new constitution. A Shiite negotiator, Khalid al-Attiyah. said talks were going so well that the document might be ready for parliament today.

Elsewhere, six new Iraqi soldier recruits were killed after gunmen stopped their minibus near Hawija, 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, said Iraqi Army Brig. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin.

The latest attacks in the capital occurred shortly before Iraqi leaders started a meeting to try to finish the new constitution.