Baghdad alert after embassy blasts

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Iraq is on high alert following three co-ordinated suicide car bomb attacks in Baghdad that left at least 30 people dead and hundreds of others wounded, reports Aljazeera.net.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attacks outside foreign diplomatic missions, but as Iraqi security officials investigating the blasts said that preliminary findings indicated that al-Qaeda in Iraq could have been to blame.
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, told the AFP news agency that the incident resembled previous attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq, but it was too soon to be certain as investigations were ongoing.
"They bear the same marks of previous attacks, in the timing, the targeting, the simultaneous attacks on different targets in different places to have maximum impact," he said.
Attackers detonated the three bomb-laden cars within minutes of each other in central and western parts of the capital on Sunday, sending plumes of dark smoke into the sky.
Two were suicide attacks against the Egyptian and Iranian embassies, Iraqi security forces said, while the third struck close to the German, Spanish and Syrian missions.
No deaths were reported among any of the embassies' foreign staff, although several Iraqi guards at the German and Egyptian missions were killed.