BAGHDAD, March 14, (Agencies): Coordinated blasts killed at least 25 people in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where several Western embassies are located, police and medics said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosions, but Sunni Muslim insurgents have been redoubling their efforts to undermine Iraq’s Shiite-led government and foment inter-communal conflict this year.

The brazen attacks in broad daylight will fan concerns about Iraq’s fragile security, which has come under growing strain as the increasingly sectarian conflict in neighbouring Syria threatens to upset its own Sunni-Shiite balance.

Police said two car bombs exploded in the Alawi district, one of them near the Justice Ministry building, before a suicide car bomber blew himself up near an Interior Ministry office.

A suicide bomber then walked into the Justice Ministry and militants attacked the building, clashing with Iraqi security forces, who eventually regained control.

“I went to the second floor to do something when I heard a big explosion, then a second one,” said Ammar Ghanim, a policeman who was inside the ministry at the time of the attack.

“We heard shooting and a few minutes later three attackers wearing military uniform came up to the second floor and randomly started shooting,” he said. “I got shot in the leg and I am very proud to have killed one of them (the attackers).”

Among the dead were at least 7 policemen and 15 civilians, police and medics said. Three militants were also killed. At least 50 people were wounded.

Iraq’s power-sharing government has been all but paralysed since US troops left more than a year ago and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, is facing protests in the country’s Sunni heartland, which shares a porous border with Syria.

Violence has intensified as Sunni opposition has swelled, and Iraq’s al-Qaeda affiliate has urged the protesters to take up arms against the government.

Security experts say al-Qaeda-linked militants have been regrouping in the western province of Anbar and crossing into Syria to fight alongside mainly Sunni rebels against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Shiite Iran.

“Everybody panicked (after the first blast) and seconds later we heard a second explosion. I looked through the window and I saw some gunmen wearing police uniforms entering the building. We knew that these policemen were fake,” said Asmaa Abbas, a Justice Ministry employee who was working in her third-floor office.

A gun battle broke out between the intruders and security forces, as other explosions went off near the bus station and the headquarters for a VIP protection force that provides bodyguards for lawmakers, government ministers and other senior officials.

After about an hour, security forces stormed the building and some of the gunmen detonated explosives they were wearing, the officer on the scene said.

“It was the longest hour in my life,” said Abbas, the employee.

Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said there were more than 1,000 people in the four-story building at the time of the attack. He said the minister is abroad and was not inside.

“When the explosions and shooting started, the guards evacuated me out a back door, and I have no idea what happened after that,” he said, speaking over the telephone from outside the building.
The attack killed 25 people in addition to the gunmen and wounded 57 others, police said. The dead include seven police officers.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualty numbers. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Justice Ministry employees had moved to this facility after a 2009 attack on the nearby Ministry of Justice, which is now being repaired. That attack was part of a double car bombing which killed at least 147 people and heavily damaged the building.

Thursday’s attack took place about a kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) away from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses several foreign embassies and Iraqi government offices.

Violence in Iraq has subsided from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but deadly attacks remain frequent a decade after the March 20, 2003 start of the American-led invasion.

Iraq’s government is being challenged by weekly protests that began in December from Sunnis angry over perceived discrimination. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, and most Iraqi Sunnis do not voice support for al-Qaeda.

But al-Qaeda hopes to exploit the increasing tensions. It believes Shiites are heretics and that Iraq’s government is too closely allied with neighboring Shiite powerhouse Iran.

Earlier this week, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the deaths of 51 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqis in a well-planned assault in western Iraq on March 4, intensifying concerns that the terror group is coordinating with Islamist rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.