Eight killed in Iraq car bombs

A series of car bombs killed at least eight people in Baghdad today as rebels stepped up their offensive to block this month’s election.

The UN election chief said only a sustained onslaught could stop the voting on January 30.

A bomb packed into a truck exploded outside the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, killing two people, and another car bomb killed six at a police station in the capital.

Then a car bomb exploded outside a bank where policemen were collecting their salaries. Many casulaties were reported

The truck bomb exploded outside cement blast barriers around the Australian embassy compound in a blast that rocked the centre of the city.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said two people were killed. Two Australian soldiers were injured, defence officials said.

An Iraqi guard said a man drove a truck cab, without a trailer, to the cement barriers in front of the embassy, then fled in another car that was waiting for him.

About a half hour later, a car bomb exploded outside a police station in eastern Baghdad, killing six people and wounding several others.

A third blast was believed to have been caused by a mortar round targeting US and Iraqi security troops based at the disused al-Muthana airport compound. Several people were wounded.

Several other explosions rattled the windows of buildings along the Tigris River, but its cause was no immediately known.

Then came the car bomb attack on the bank.

Carlos Valenzuela, the chief UN election adviser in Iraq, said the intimidation of electoral workers by rebels seeking to derail this month’s vote is ”high and very serious”.

He said only a sustained onslaught by insurgents or the mass resignation of electoral workers will prevent the national elections from going ahead.

The vote is for a 275 seat legislature. Iraqis will also elect local councils.

Iraqi authorities said nine people were killed in the Iraq blasts but the US military put the death toll at 26, based on initial reports from American soldiers who responded to the attacks.

The discrepancy in the count could not immediately be resolved.

The al-Qaida in Iraq terror group claimed it was behind the Australian embassy truck bombing.