Many casualties in Baghdad triple car bomb - police

BAGHDAD - Three car bombs targeting a bus station in central Baghdad caused many casualties during the Wednesday morning rush hour, police said.

"There are many wounded and killed," one police officer said after two bombs went off within minutes of each other at the bustling Nahda bus station.

Moments later a third car bomb detonated nearby, close to the Kindi hospital where some of the wounded were being taken.

Thick black smoke rose over the city and a Reuters reporter saw blazing buses and cars and two lifeless bodies on the road.

There has been a lull for the past week or so in major insurgent attacks in the Iraqi capital.

Leaders of rival sectarian and ethnic communities are deep in negotiation on a new constitution and the attacks may have been intended to send a message of defiance from the Sunni Arab rebels opposed to the new, US-backed, Shi'ite-led government.

The coordination of the bombs suggested the involvement of Islamist radical groups like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has carried out many of the biggest suicide car bomb attacks since the government was formed four months ago.

- REUTERS