Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, March 11 (Xinhua) -- A series of bombings, including two suicide bomb attacks, killed 30 people and wounded 39 others in Baghdad on Sunday, police said.

    A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a lorry carrying Shiite pilgrims near an intersection in Baghdad's central district of Karradah around midday, killing 19 people and wounding 25 others, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Earlier, the source said that a car bomb went off at the scene, killing 19 people and wounding 20 others.

    In a second attack, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up inside a bus carrying passengers near the Talbiyah bridge close to the Mustansriyah University in eastern Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding eight others, the source said.

    Separately, a car bomb went off near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi army soldiers in western Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood in the afternoon, killing one soldier and wounding another, he added.

    In addition, a car bomb parking on the Arasat Street in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Masbah, detonated and wounded five civilians earlier in the day, the source added.

    The deadly attacks came just one day after representatives from Iraq's neighbors and world powers convened a security conference in Baghdad, aiming to drum up support and find solutions for the unrelenting violence that swept Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

    Bombings still persist in the hub of Iraq despite the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers across the capital in a major security crackdown designed to curb insurgency and sectarian violence in the war-torn country.