A total of four attacks, which included a suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol, marked the third time since August that government buildings were targeted with multiple blasts that caused massive bloodshed.

The core of the attacks hit central Baghdad with three car bombs exploding in the span of a few minutes. The attacks were directed at Iraqi authorities: the targets were the labour ministry building, a court complex near the Iraqi- protected Green Zone and near the new site of the finance ministry after its previous building was destroyed in major attacks in August.

An official for Iraq's interior ministry said at least 99 people were killed in those three car bombs and at least 192 injured.

About an hour before the Baghdad blasts, a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol in the Sunni- dominated district of Dora in southern Baghdad, killing at least three policemen and one civilian and wounding five persons, a police officer said.

Iraqi police said at least one of the Baghdad blasts was a suicide bomber -- driving a bomb- rigged ambulance heading for the finance ministry. The other two explosions may have been car- rigged bombs detonated by timer or trigger.

" What crime have we committed? Children and women were buried under debris. Why did they ( Iraqi troops) let this car bomb pass!" cried Ahmed Jabbar as he staggered through the debris near the new finance ministry building. The blast tore through a nearby market and toppled at least one building nearby. Rescue teams -- some using construction cranes -- tried to clear the rubble to look for survivors.

The breakdown of casualties among the sites was not immediately clear, but the most serious bloodshed had been reported outside the finance ministry building and the court complex.

Rescue workers climbed through twisted steel bars and crushed concrete at the court building. Dozens of cars and trucks were burnt and crushed. Firefighters pulled out survivors from behind huge slabs of toppled concrete.