Baghdad - Three powerful car bombs exploded one after the other in a southern provincial capital on Wednesday, killing at least 46 and injuring 149, the most devastating attack in the nation since August, said police.

    The attack in Amarah in Maysan provincewas believed to be its first mass bombing since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The area is considered one of the country's safest, and the bombings shattered a hopeful, if brittle, lull in Iraq's violence.

    Coming as British forces prepareto hand over neighboring Basra province this weekend to Iraqi security forces, the bombings also underscored the fragility of southern Iraq, where rival Shiite groups are battling for influence and resources.

    Police expect the death toll to rise. Immediate casualty numbers varied. Officials in Amarah said at least 46 were killed, while Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, the spokesman for Iraq's Interior Ministry, which oversees the national police, put the toll at 26.

    Hours after the bombings, the Iraqi government fired Amarah's police chief and said he would be replaced by Khalaf.

    Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was visiting Basra on Tuesday, said the attack was a "desperate attempt" to undermine efforts to stabilize the country.

    "Any criminal act they commit would only be a desperate attempt to draw attention away from the clear successes and to break through the siege imposed on the defeated groups," he said, Reuters news service reported. Maliki also called on residents in Amarah to exercise restraint and avoid revenge attacks against the "terrorists who do not want Iraq to stand up again."

    The blasts tore through Dijlah Street, a commercial thoroughfare in Amarah at around 11 a.m., ripping apart nearby shops and restaurants, said witnesses. Hamoun Abu Mohammad, 44, was inside his bakery when he heard the series of three explosions. He said he ferried victims in his car to a local hospital.

    "The second one, which was the most powerful one, went off in front of Jalal Restaurant and when people rushed to help the victims, the third bomb detonated," Abu Mohammad said in a telephone interview.

    Police sealed off section of Dijlah Street, where Amarah's most well-known restaurants and clothing stores are located, as ambulances took victims to three different hospitals, said Lt. Col. Khalid Muhammad, adding that number of victims is increasing. No groups claimed responsibility for the attacks, said police. But residents immediately blamed Shiite factions, who many believe are behind recent assassinations and kidnappings in the city.

    "It is impossible that al-Qaeda is behind these bombings," Abu Muhannad, 30, a vendor at a vegetable market, who did not want to give his full name. "We have not heard of any existence of al-Qaeda here."

    Abdul Jabar, 39, an owner of a turban shop, said that when the British withdrew from Amarah in April, Iraqi security forces could not fill the void and adequately protect the city. "The number of policemen is not enough and do not have enough effective weapons," said Jabar.

    "Their security measures are very weak here," Abu Muhannad, said in a telephone interview. "At checkpoints, they don't search cars. I can't remember that I got stopped once by them to check my ID or to search my car."

    Wednesday's attack shattered many residents' sense of security. "We hope that these explosions will the first and the last," said Jabar. "We do not want to be like Baghdad."

    "I don't think there will be any safe place in Iraq after what happened today," said Abu Mohammad.

    Special correspondents Zaid Sabah and Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Diwaniya contributed to this article.

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    Iraq Rejects Permanent US Bases

    By Peter Graff

    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 11 December 2007

    Iraq will never allow the United States to keep permanent military bases on its soil, the government's national security adviser has said.

    "We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.

    "But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi," he said, speaking to Dubai-based al Arabiya television in an interview broadcast late on Monday.

    The United States has around 160,000 troops in Iraq, officially under a United Nations mandate enacted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

    Iraq formally asked the United Nations on Monday to renew that mandate for a year until the end of 2008 but made clear it would not extend it beyond next year, and that the mandate could be revoked sooner at Iraq's request.

    President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki signed a "declaration of principles" last month agreeing to friendly long-term relations, but arrangements for U.S. troops to stay beyond next year have yet to be negotiated.

    Iraq has become less violent in recent months after Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to the country. Washington intends to reduce its force by more than 20,000 by June 2008, and is expected to decide in March on force levels beyond that date.

    U.S. commanders say al Qaeda Sunni Arab militants remain a serious threat, especially in the north of the country. Last week an al Qaeda-linked group threatened a wave of new attacks.

    On Tuesday, a suicide bomber blew up a car bomb at a checkpoint in a heavily guarded affluent west Baghdad neighborhood near the homes of former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the leader of a small Sunni Arab party.

    Two people were killed and 12 wounded in the attack. Neither politician was at their homes at the time.

    The head of Iraq's largest mental hospital was killed by gunmen in a drive-by shooting late on Monday, the latest in a wave of attacks on medical experts that has caused an exodus of many of Iraq's most skilled doctors.

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