Six bombs rock Baghdad:

Thirty-five killed

IRAQ: Six bombs rocked Baghdad, killing at least 35 people Tuesday, the second time the Capital came under attack in three days, fuelling fears insurgents are making a return due to a political impasse.

The explosions destroyed residential buildings in mostly Shiite neighbourhoods, and a security spokesman said Iraq was in “open war” with the remnants of Al-Qaeda and loyalists of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

“Six bomb attacks in several neighbourhoods of Baghdad occurred, and seven buildings collapsed,” an interior ministry official told AFP.

The official said 35 people were killed and 140 wounded, but several victims are thought to be trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Ambulance sirens wailed throughout the city as emergency service workers rushed to the scenes of the blasts, and a large plume of smoke rose from near a destroyed building in the neighbourhood of Allawi, central Baghdad.

The building housed several apartments with shopfronts on its ground floor, and workers used heavy machinery to lift large pieces of rubble in a bid to find those buried under the collapsed structure.

Dozens of passersby gathered at the site of the blast, close to a secondary school, to sort through the rubble in hopes of rescuing survivors as military helicopters flew overhead.

“I was picking up bricks and sand to find victims, and just when I succeeded to remove the rubble, the man I saw died,” said a 25-year-old man who gave his name only as Mustafa.

“His wife came to me to see if I had seen him, and I told her he died.” Bombs were planted inside empty apartments, officials said. AFP