BAGHDAD, April 21 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 68 people were killed and many others wounded in suicide car bombing attacks on four police targets both inside and outside the southern Iraqi city of Basrah Wednesday morning.

   According to local officials and witnesses, three near-simultaneous car bombings hit three police stations in Basra at around 07:15 am (0315 GMT), the rush hour for local residents, less than 2 hours before the fourth car bombing attack hit an Iraqi police academy in Zubair in the suburb of Basrah.

   "Sixty-eight people were killed and 98 others wounded" in Basraand Zubair, 25 kilometers further south, Basra provincial Governor Wael Abdel Latif told reporters.

   "Most of the victims are policemen and schoolchildren," he said, adding that the death toll could rise further as many of the wounded were in serious condition.

   The governor, who is also a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, said among those being killed there were 16 children and nine policemen.

   Iraqi Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi blamed "terrorists" for the blasts, saying that the Basra attack resembled suicide bombings earlier this year against Shiites and Kurds that killed hundreds and likely to be work of foreign Islamic militants.

   A British defence ministry spokeswoman in Basra said that the four car bombings on police targets there appear to have been the work of suicide bombers.

   "All four attacks seem to have been carried out by suicide bombers," she said.

   According to local witnesses, British forces who rushed to the scene were being hampered by angry protesters. Local Iraqis threw stones at the British troops who tried to reach the blast sites.

   Four British troops were also injured in the attacks, a British army source said, adding that two of the injured soldiers were in serious condition.

   Located some 560 km south of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Basrah is the second largest city in the country, which is now under control of some 10,000 British troops.

   With most of its residents being Shiite muslims, the city remains relatively calm in the past year compared with other places like Baghdad and the so-called sunni traingle area in cental and northern Iraq that frequently hit by all kinds of violences.

   The last mega series bombing attacks hit Iraq was on March 2this year, when 171 people were killed in a series of bombing attacks, including three suicide bombings in a Baghdad mosque and suicide bombing, explosion and mortar attacks in Kerbala, a holy city of the Shiite muslims some 110 km south of Baghdad.

   Also on Feb. 23 of this year, 13 people were killed in a suicide bombing attack on a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

   The explosions came only some 70 days left for the specified date for the power transfer to Iraqis from the occupation forces.   It could have a great effect on the situation in the country by the time of the power transfer as Iraqis do not trust the plan put by the Americans and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in last November 15.

   Most Iraqis believe that the United States would continue running things in Iraq after June 30, whether through US civil governor in Iraq Paul Bremer, or through an American embassy.

   The worst scenario would trigger a civil war, observers worried. Enditem (By Jamal Hashim)