Bombers Hit Checkpoint and Convoy in Baghdad

The attacks started around 6 a.m., when bombs were detonated near liquor stores in southeast Baghdad. About an hour later, a device in the same area of Baghdad exploded near a convoy belonging to the Finance Ministry.

A little before 8 a.m., a bomb was detonated near Baghdad University, wounding two people, government officials said.

A few minutes later, a car bomb went off outside the Green Zone entrance, where government employees and officials are usually screened for explosives and weapons.

Security officers at the checkpoint opened fire, and a few minutes later a second car bomb exploded at the same entrance.

At noon, gunmen stormed a jewelry shop in the area. One person was killed and another wounded, but nothing was taken, officials said.

About two hours later, Naseer al-Chaderchi, a member of the governing council that led Iraq after the American invasion, was wounded, along with two of his guards and three others, when a bomb struck their convoy.

A spokesman for the Baghdad security command, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for the attacks on the Green Zone entrance. He said the attackers appeared to be aiming at a convoy that included an aide to the speaker of Parliament. The aide survived the attack.

“The goal was to detonate the first car and then let the second one get into the Green Zone,” General Moussawi said. “But they didn’t accomplish this, and they were unable to even get close to the checkpoint’s gate, which led to them exploding them about 500 meters from the checkpoint.”

General Moussawi dismissed any notion that the attacks constituted a message to the Arab League summit meeting scheduled for Baghdad next month.

“I was knocked out, and then I found myself in the hospital,” said Abbas Asi Belal, 55, a laborer who was renovating a house near the Green Zone checkpoint and sustained a head wound. “How can the bombers get this close? No one can get to this road unless they work with the government.”

There was violence elsewhere, as well. In the western city of Falluja a device placed on a car exploded, wounding two Iraqi Army officers. In the northern province of Diyala, a convoy of American military personnel was attacked, but no injuries were reported.

Hamid al-Mutlaq, a member of the Iraqiya bloc, in opposition to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, blamed Mr. Maliki’s unwillingness to appoint security ministers for the continuing attacks. Instead, Mr. Maliki supervises the security forces.

Mr. Mutlaq, a member of the security committee, said “the problem is that the parties have tried to place men in the security positions but they are not qualified,” which delays the process.

“And the streets are really getting angry with what’s going on, and we in Parliament are really afraid we will lose control of the streets,” he said.