95 killed in Baghdad bomb carnage

A series of devastating attacks across Baghdad killed at least 75 people on Wednesday, in the worst day of carnage to hit the Iraqi capital since US troops pulled out of the conflict-hit nation's cities. Nearly 400 people were also wounded in two massive truck bombings outside government ministries, including one near the heavily-fortified Green Zone, a car bombing and a spate of mortar attacks. One of the truck bombs exploded outside the foreign ministry in a residential area close to the Green Zone sending plumes of smoke and dust into the air, leaving a crater three metres deep and 10 metres in diameter filled with the twisted wreckage of dozens of cars and several charred corpses. The walls of the ministry compound in the Salhiyeh district were destroyed and its facade badly damaged, while cars were buckled and burnt for hundreds of metres. The bombing also destroyed water tanks on houses near the ministry, sending water gushing into homes. Another truck bomb struck outside the finance ministry in Baghdad's northern neighbourhood of Waziriyah, destroying part of a bridge near the ministry compound, and left more than 200 injured, nearby hospitals said. Officials from the interior and defence ministries said 47 people were killed at the foreign ministry, while the finance ministry attack left 28 dead. Major General Qassim Atta, the spokesman for the Iraqi Army's Baghdad operations, said the attacks at the finance and foreign ministries were truck bombings, and added that security forces had arrested two senior Al-Qaeda leaders in the Mansur neighbourhood of western Baghdad. A car bomb also hit a market in the western neighbourhood of Bayaa, killing two people and wounding five, a defence ministry official said, while two mortars landed in the Green Zone -- an area of foreign embassies and government offices -- and one exploded outside, a security official said.