Near-simultaneous explosions ripped through three police stations in southern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 45 people, including schoolchildren on a passing bus, and wounding 236, officials said.  

A fourth explosion near the city's police academy took place about two hours after the initial blasts, but no casualties were immediately reported.

British military spokesman Squadron leader Jonathan Arnold said the blasts that hit the police stations were believed to have been caused by car bombs. However, an Iraqi police colonel said that rocket attacks may have been to blame.

The attacks came a day after Iraqi leaders named a tribunal of judges and prosecutors to try Saddam Hussein, placing a longtime opponent of the ousted dictator in the forefront of the case against him and his former Baathist inner circle.

Iraqi Police Col. Kadhem al-Muhammedawi said about 10 elementary school students in a bus passing by the Saudia police station at the time of the blasts were among the dead.

Cars and at least two school buses were seen destroyed outside the station in the Saudia district of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. The interior of one of the school buses was burned out, the seats shredded.

The facade of the Saudia station also was heavily damaged and there was a hole 6-feet deep and 9-feet wide in front. Bloodied and badly burned bodies were rushed to the hospital.

More than 40 people were killed and at least 200 injured in the explosions, said Ali Hussein, an emergency physician at Basra's main hospital. Dozens of bodies filled the morgue and in the hallways of Basra's Educational Hospital, the city's largest.

Another five dead and 36 injured were evacuated to a second hospital, Basra General Hospital, hospital officials said.

In London, a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman said that no British troops had been hurt in the blasts, and that attempts by British forces to help were being hampered by protesters.

"Basra has been mainly calm, certainly whilst the trouble has been going on in Fallujah. It is worrying," she said on condition of anonymity.

Also Wednesday, about 35 Iraqi insurgents attacked US Marines in the besieged city of Fallujah with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, setting off a heavy gunbattle, the military said. No casualties were immediately reported.

Iraqi security forces, some wearing flak jackets and carrying weapons, moved back into Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, on Tuesday, part of an agreement between US officials and local leaders aimed at ending hostilities. The accord calls on insurgents to hand in weapons and allows civilians to return.

US officials have warned that if guerrillas do not surrender their weapons, Marines are prepared to storm the city -- likely sparking a new round of bloody fighting.

On Tuesday, a senior member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress was appointed to head the all-Iraqi tribunal -- a potentially controversial choice.

Chalabi, a longtime exile who returned to Iraq and was named to the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, is mistrusted as an outsider by many Iraqis who want to see Saddam prosecuted by Iraqis who were present under his brutal rule.

Meanwhile, guerrillas fired a barrage of mortar rounds at Baghdad's largest prison, killing 22 prisoners in an attack a US general said may have been an attempt to spark an inmate uprising against American guards. The slain prisoners were all security detainees, meaning they were suspected of belonging to the anti-US insurgency or to Saddam's former regime.

A US soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul: It was the 100th American combat death in April, the deadliest month since the US-led invasion began in March 2003.

At least 1,100 Iraqis have been killed in fighting since the start of the month, according to an Associated Press count based on reports from hospitals and Iraqi and US officials.

Tuesday's mortar attack was the bloodiest against the sprawling prison complex of Abu Ghraib in western Baghdad. Ninety-two prisoners were wounded, 25 of them seriously, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a US military spokeswoman.

"This isn't the first time that we have seen this kind of attack. We don't know if they are trying to inspire an uprising or a prison break," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt. In August, six security prisoners were killed in a mortar attack on the lockup, which was once Saddam's most notorious prison.

In the tribunal appointments, Salem Chalabi, a US-educated lawyer and nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, was named by the Governing Council as director-general of the court, said INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar.

Salem Chalabi named seven judges and four prosecutors, and further judges will be appointed, Qanbar said.

No date has been set for the trial of Saddam, who was captured by US troops in December and has since been undergoing CIA and FBI interrogation at an undisclosed location in or near Baghdad.

On the council, Ahmad Chalabi, a favorite of the Pentagon architects of the Iraq invasion, has been a fierce proponent of expunging traces of Saddam's regime. He heads an official De-Baathification Commission that has been aggressive in purging Iraqis with links to Saddam's dissolved party from government positions -- so aggressive that even some US officials have complained that it was getting rid of needed expertise.

Any trial of Saddam is sure to begin after the June 30 transfer of power to a caretaker Iraqi government, after which the Governing Council will be dissolved.

If Chalabi's status is diminished in that handover, "there is a very good chance ... this court may see a change in its membership," said Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio.

Ahmad Chalabi's INC held a seat on the Governing Council commission that drew up the Saddam tribunal.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has recommended the council be dissolved on June 30 and a caretaker government of technocrats take its place. "Then certainly (Chalabi) and the INC will have a diminution in their political status," Dawisha said.

"If that happens, will the judge who is a relative of Chalabi be able to survive, or will the new government appoint a new group of people?"

Elections due by Jan. 31 for a government to replace the caretaker one also affect the tribunal. A court formed by an elected government would have more legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis, Dawisha said.

Iraqis -- particularly the Shiite Muslim majority repressed by the Baathists -- have been eager to try the man who ruled them with an iron fist for decades. Shiites, particularly local leaders with grassroots support, are likely to dominate any elected government and could want to see their own people lead Saddam's prosecution.

The tribunal named Tuesday will not be an international one. However, its Iraqi judges and prosecutors will be trained in international and war crimes law and look at the experiences of bodies such as the Rwanda war crimes tribunal, said INC spokesman Entefadh Qanbar, who announced Salem Chalabi's appointment.

The court will determine charges against Saddam and his fellow Baathists, Qanbar said.

A team of Justice Department prosecutors and investigators has been gathering evidence for a war crimes case against Saddam, while other international groups have been sifting through the mass graves where US officials say 300,000 victims of Saddam's regime were buried.

Aside from the regime's brutal persecution of political opponents, Kurds and Shiite Muslims, Saddam's military used chemical weapons against troops and civilians during the Iraq-Iraq War and a Kurdish uprising of the 1980s.

(China Daily April 21, 2004)