Officials said the near-simultaneous blasts late morning injured around 168 people while witnesses reported mayhem in central Baghdad as ambulances and emergency workers raced to the sites of the explosions.

"They were suicide attacks against the Egyptian and Iranian embassies," said Major General Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi security forces' Baghdad operations.
He added that one of the bombings may also have been targeting the residence of the German embassy.

The explosions occurred within minutes of each other, shattering windows in nearby buildings, sparking bursts of gunfire and sending large plumes of smoke billowing across the Iraqi capital.

An interior ministry official said two apparently coordinated suicide car bombs hit the diplomatic west Baghdad neighbourhood of Mansur, and a third huge explosion struck the Iranian embassy in the centre of the city soon afterwards.The three blasts killed at least 30 people and wounded another 168, the official said."The explosion (at the Iranian embassy) was really strong," said Abu Ahmed, a taxi driver who was inside a shop at the time of the blast.