BAGHDAD -- Three car bombs exploded near a crowded bus station yesterday, killing up to 43 people in the deadliest suicide attack in Baghdad in weeks.
The attacks, which began at the height of rush hour, may have been carried out to coincide with deliberations on Iraq's constitution, which resumed yesterday after failing to meet a deadline two days ago.
Police said the first bomb blew up the busy Nadha bus terminal shortly before 8 a.m. As police rushed to the scene, a suicide driver detonated his vehicle in the station's parking lot. Another suicide bomber blew up his car a half hour later near Kindi Hospital, to which ambulances were transporting the injured.
Police Capt. Nabil Abdul-Qader said 43 people were killed and 85 were wounded in the attacks. The U.S. military put the casualty toll at 38 dead and 68 injured.
Screaming survivors scrambled about the smoking, husks of buses and cars looking for signs of relatives.
Four suspects were detained at the bus station on suspicion of involvement.
Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's foreign affairs minister, condemned the attacks.
"It is clear that the perpetrators of this immoral attack act without conscience, with the sole objective of preventing the establishment of a peaceful and democratic Iraq," he said in a statement.
The attacks occurred shortly before the leaders of Iraq's political factions met to try to finish the constitution by the new deadline next Monday. If no agreement can be reached, parliament must be dissolved and a new transitional assembly and government elected.
The country's largest Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued a blistering attack on the drafting committee, accusing it of bias and incompetence.
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