Baghdad, Dec 8 (DPA) At least 100 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in four powerful bomb explosions in central Baghdad Tuesday morning. It was one of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq this year.
Panic reigned on the streets of the capital after the blasts shook several districts in the city centre, strewing human body parts through the streets and badly damaging government buildings, witnesses said.

Abd al-Satar al-Birqadar, spokesman for Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, said “hundreds” of jurists and employees of two Baghdad courts were feared dead after a man drove a car through a security barrier and detonated explosives packed into the vehicle.

Emergency workers were still sorting through the rubble, trying to rescue survivors from the blast, which severely damaged the building, he said.

The other blasts occurred near the interior and labour ministries, a university, and the Institute of Fine Arts.

Police said they expected the number of dead and wounded to rise rapidly as relief efforts get underway.

Tuesday’s attacks were the worst since a series of blasts last October that killed 155 people and injured hundreds more.

Security forces closed all checkpoints in the city following Tuesday’s attack, and heavy traffic temporarily knocked out the mobile-phone network following the blasts, al-Jazeera reported.