40 die in Baghdad carnage

In five separate attacks, Ba’athists dressed up as foriegn aid workers sent ambulances through security checkpoints.

The blast blew down a 40ft section of the wall in front of the three-storey Red Cross building, destroying a dozen cars and shattering a water main. Emergency services fought to control the blaze as ambulances swept through the city, ferrying the suicide bombers’ injured victims to hospital.

Eye witness Salah Mansour sobbed as he said: “When the driver reached near the Red Cross building he got down from the vehicle and a guard went up to ask him why he had stopped there. The driver said he was trying to fix the car and then the blast just went off.” In attacks launched across the city almost simultaneously and at the height of the morning rush hour, four police stations were also targeted bringing the total dead to at least 37.

They came as the city’s Muslim population observed the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Ramadan tends to be the green light for terror attacks.

No doubt that there are a number of non-Iraqi terrorists involved in the attacks, as it is (a) a large scale operation that (b) involved a large degree of planning. Typical al-Qaeda. This should get interesting. . .