The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

Three explosions rocked Baghdad on Monday, killing 20 people two days before parliament was to vote on a divisive military pact that would have all US troops leave the country by the end of 2011.

One of the blasts was caused by a female suicide bomber who detonated her explosives vest at the entrance to Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone, brutally underscoring the lingering violence in the Iraqi capital.

In the first attack 13 people were killed-nine of them women-when a roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying trade ministry employees during the morning commute in east Baghdad, a medical official at a nearby hospital said.

The medic said most of the victims were incinerated inside the bus, and that five other people were wounded in the attack.

Less than an hour later five people were killed when the suicide bomber blew herself up in a corridor leading into the Green Zone, where Iraqi employees were queuing to pass through security checkpoints, police said.

Another 17 people were wounded in the rush-hour attack, which echoed across central Baghdad and sent a pillar of black smoke into the air.

In another attack in east Baghdad a roadside bomb killed one person and wounded five others, police said, adding that three of the wounded were patrolling police who appeared to have been the intended target.

The Green Zone blast splashed blood and seared flesh across the grey concrete barriers at the entrance, according to an AFP correspondent.

US and Iraqi forces closed the entrance and ordered bystanders to leave the area, forcing employees to wait hundreds of metres (yards) away.

An official from the Iraqi intelligence services said the blast targeted the entrance to a corridor of checkpoints leading to their headquarters.

"Two women employees of the intelligence services were killed and six guards were wounded in the attack this morning. This attack targeted our checkpoint," he said, adding that one of the women was pregnant.