BAGHDAD -- A string of car bombs killed 35 children and seven other Iraqis and wounded scores as US troops handed out candy yesterday at a government-sponsored celebration to inaugurate a sewage plant. It was the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the start of the Iraq conflict.
Grief-stricken mothers wailed over their children's bloodied corpses, as relatives collected body parts from the street for burial and a boy picked up the damaged bicycle of his dead brother.
The wounded were rushed to Yarmouk Hospital, where angry relatives screamed for attention from the overwhelmed doctors, many of whom wore uniforms covered in blood. One woman tore at her hair before pulling back the sheet covering her dead brother and kissing his body.
The bombings in Baghdad's western al-Amel neighborhood -- at least two of which were in cars -- were part of a series of savage attacks that killed at least 51 people and wounded 230 nationwide. At least one US soldier was among the dead and 13 were wounded.
The Tawhid and Jihad group, headed by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for bloody attacks in Baghdad, according to a statement posted on a militant website.
The authenticity of the statement could not be verified, and it was unclear whether the three ''heroic operations" it cites -- attacks on a government complex and ''a convoy of invading forces" -- included the bombs that killed the children.
Early reports said a US convoy was passing by the celebration when the attack occurred. The US military said later that American soldiers were taking part in the celebration but that no convoy was passing through the area.
American jets, tanks, and artillery units have repeatedly targeted Zarqawi's followers in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, as coalition forces seek to assert control over insurgent enclaves ahead of elections slated for January.
Deputy Interior Minister General Hussein Ali Kamal said intense military pressure on insurgents holed up in Fallujah was forcing them to turn their bombs on the capital. He said the day's attacks were ''definitely coordinated."
''They are killing citizens and spreading horror. They have no aims except killing as many Iraqis as they can," Kamal said.
Some of the children, who are near the end of a nationwide school vacation, said they were attracted to the neighborhood celebration by American soldiers handing out candy.
''The Americans called us. They told us: 'Come here, come here,' asking us if we wanted sweets. We went beside them, then a car exploded," said 12-year-old Abdel Rahman Dawoud, lying naked in a hospital bed with shrapnel embedded all over his body.
