A SERIES of bombings hit Baghdad, killing at least 69 people in the first big assault on Iraq’s capital since a sectarian crisis erupted within its government days after the US troop withdrawal.

Arab diplomat Mokhtar Lamani has resigned, disillusioned and nearly drained of hope, after spending months in Iraq trying to coax Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders into peace.

Three car bomb attacks near a bus station and hospital in Baghdad killed at least 43 people and wounded another 89 today, in the deadliest attacks in the capital in weeks. Survivors searched through charred buses and cars for signs of friends and relatives.