Bomb Blasts in Baghdad Leave Scores Dead

BAGHDAD Jan.16-- A series of explosions today amid crowds of college students outside a university in Baghdad killed dozens of people and wounded tens of others, prompting a hospital to put out a city-wide appeal for blood donations to deal with the scores of injuries, according to Iraqi officials and witnesses.

The explosions rocked the area outside Mustansriya University near Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad at about 4:00 p.m. as students waited outside after school.

Reports of the death toll rose throughout the afternoon. The Reuters news service said 60 people were killed and more than 110 wounded, citing Iraqi police. The Associated Press reported at least 65 people killed.

The dean of the university, Dr. Taqui al-Mussawi, said in an interview on Iraqi state television that at least 42 people were killed and 143 wounded in the attacks involving car bombs and a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt. Mussawi said he only had a partial count of the casualties because he had not contacted all the hospitals.

A spokesman at the Interior Ministry, Abdul Kareem al-Kinani, said that two car bombs exploded but he did not say how many people were injured or killed.

None of the death counts could immediately be independently confirmed.

Al-Hurra Iraq television broadcast an appeal by Higher Education ministry officials for people to donate blood to Kindy hospital because their supplies were overwhelmed by the many casualties from the blasts.

The university bombings were part of a series of explosions that rocked Baghdad today, at a time when the Iraqi government has started a push to stop the sectarian killing in Baghdad. More than 20,000 additional U.S. troops are on their way to Iraq to help the Iraqi security forces.

At least 25 people were killed by four other bombs around Baghdad, Reuters reported.

The U.S. military said today a suicide car bomb exploded in the once-upscale neighborhood of Al Mansour in western Baghdad on Monday that killed two Iraqi Army soldiers and seriously injured three others.

Iraqi television broadcast images of firefighters dousing the charred wreckage of cars as smoke billowed in the air and residents swarmed in the streets.

A United Nations human rights report issued today highlighted the problems plaguing academics and universities in Iraq.

The Iraqi Higher Education ministry said at least 155 educational professionals have been killed since 2003, the report said. "Academics have apparently been singled out for their relatively respected public status, vulnerability and views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic extremism," the report said.