Bloody summer in Baghdad with record casualties on all sides

Baghdad experienced one of its worst days of carnage - even by the city's bloody standards - when 68 people were killed and almost 300 others injured by coordinated attacks in the space of half an hour.

Around 3,500 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, one of the highest death tolls for a month since the US led invasion of 2003.

Meanwhile August was one of the most lethal months for the Americans with the killing of 53 soldiers and marines.

The upsurge in violence comes even as American officials were maintaining that the situation in the Iraqi capital was being controlled after the deployment of 3,500 soldiers three weeks ago.

The Iraqi government also claimed that it will be in a position to provide security to the whole country by the end of the year.

The latest deaths were the result of bombs planted in cars and buildings along with a wave of missile attacks aimed at Shia neighbourhoods.

Apartments and houses had been rented by suspected Sunni bombers who had then planted explosive devices which were simultaneously detonated by remote control.

People searching among the rubble for friends and relations were then hit by a second wave of attacks from car bombs and missiles.

Shopkeepers in the Amin district cleared up after one of the explosions devastated their two-storey market.

"I was sitting in my shop with some customers. I didn't feel anything but then the shop came down on our heads," said Hamza Ali, his head bandaged.

"Maybe they planted this - some people just rented a shop behind us," he said.

Kindi Hospital was one of four in Baghdad receiving the injured.

Haidar Nasser, from al-Ameen district, said " My neighbour and four of his sons were injured. One of them had since died. There was lots of blood everywhere."

Next to him a young boy, his head and right leg heavily bandaged, his pillow bloodstained, pleaded for a glass of water.

Radha Ibrahim Ali, cradling her three year old son, added " The noise was very, very loud and just kept going on. My son was hit by flying glass, he almost lost his eye."

Major General Jihad Liaabi, director of counter-terrorism in the interior ministry, said " This was a very organised attack. They wanted to inflict maximum amount of damage to innocent people. They had rented apartments to blow them up."

The attacks coincided with US President George W. Bush's launch of a pre-election round of speeches to rally Americans behind maintaining the military presence in Iraq.

"If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies.

"They would have a new sanctuary ... with huge oil riches", Mr Bush said.

Iraq's premier Nour Al-Maliki announced that Iraqi forces will assume responsibility for Dhi Qar province in the south this month, making it the second of Iraq's 18 provinces that local forces would take control over.

"This makes us optimistic and proud because we managed to fulfill our promise," said Mr al-Maliki said.

Iraqi authorities took over Muthanna province in the south from the British in July.

Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday a roadside bomb killed three Iraqi policemen in Baghdad's southern Doura district.

Another bomb targeting police in Kirkuk, 155 miles north of Baghdad, caused three more casualties.

A senior Iraqi intelligence officer during Saddam Hussein's rule was found dead with gunshot wounds and hands bound near his home north of Baghdad a day after he was kidnapped, the second former senior Saddam officer to be killed in as many days.

And gunmen killed a policeman after storming his house Thursday night in the village of Numaniya, 72 miles south of Baghdad.

- INDEPENDENT