BAGHDAD, 5 October 2004 — Car bombs rocked Iraq yesterday and brought more carnage to the streets of two cities, killing at least 26 people. The interim government, meanwhile, struggled to stamp out an insurgency ahead of elections scheduled for January.

More than 100 people were wounded as bombers struck twice in Baghdad and once in the northern city of Mosul.

In the first Baghdad blast, a car blew up near an entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the interim government, killing at least 15 people and wounding 80, a hospital official said.

A second bomb exploded about an hour later as a US military convoy passed along Sadoun Street, a major thoroughfare east of the Tigris River, where several hotels used by foreign contractors are located. No US troops were killed or wounded, a spokesman said.

In Mosul, a car bomb exploded outside a primary school, killing five people, including two children, police said.

US President George W. Bush took note of the bombing while speaking at a campaign forum near Des Moines, Iowa.

“We’re dealing with an enemy that has ... no conscience. Today, if you noticed, there was a car bomb near a school. These people are brutal. They’re the exact opposite of Americans. We value life and human dignity; they don’t care about that. We believe in freedom; they have an ideology of hate. And they’re tough, but not as tough as America.”

Militants distributed a video to an international news agency showing the killings of two men who identified themselves as an Italian of Iraqi origin and a Turk. A militant who appeared in the video accused the two of spying.

They were shown blindfolded and kneeling in front of a ditch before being shot, a scene likely to raise fresh concern over the fate of foreign hostages in Iraq. They include British engineer Ken Bigley and two French journalists. Two Indonesian women who had been held hostage by an Iraqi militant group were handed yesterday to the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Baghdad, Abu Dhabi Television reported.

US forces kept up operations against rebel-held towns elsewhere aimed at establishing control throughout the country ahead of the nationwide poll. Airstrikes were launched against suspected militants in Fallujah.

In Baghdad’s Sadoun Street, witnesses said a small truck charged toward a group of four-wheel-drive vehicles and detonated, destroying half a dozen cars, shattering scores of shop windows and spraying wreckage across the street.

At least six people were killed and more than a dozen wounded, a source at Iraq’s Interior Ministry said.

“I saw a head in one place and a leg in another. This was a suicide bombing,” said one bystander.