BAGHDAD: Two powerful suicide car bombs blew up outside the Justice Ministry and city government offices in downtown Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 147 people in the worst attack in more than two years. Iraqi leaders said the attacks aimed to disrupt political progress in the months leading up to January’s crucial elections.

“The perpetrators of these treacherous and despicable acts are no longer hiding their objective but to the contrary, they publicly declare that they are targeting the state ... and aiming at blocking the political process, halting it and destroying what we have achieved in the last six years,” President Jalal Talabani said.

US President Barack Obama said the attack shows “the hateful and destructive agenda” of those who want to slow progress in the country. However, they “are no match for the courage and resilience” of Iraqis.

Black smoke billowed from the frantic scene, as emergency service vehicles sped to the area. Even civilian cars were being commandeered to transport the wounded to hospitals. “The walls collapsed and we had to run out,” said Yasmeen Afdhal, 24, an employee of the Baghdad provincial administration, which was targeted by one of the car bombs.

At least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, which runs the city, were killed in the bombing, said council member Mohammed Al-Rubaiey.

The area where the blasts occurred is just a few hundred yards from the Green Zone that houses the US Embassy as well as the prime minister’s offices.

The explosive-laden vehicles were sitting in parking garages next to the two government building, police said. “They are targeting the government and the political process in the country,” Maj. Gen. Qassim Al-Mousawi, spokesman for the city’s operations command center, told The Associated Press. He said the blasts were the work of suicide bombers who drove the vehicles into the parking lots, before blowing them up.

The explosions injured at least 721 people. Three American security contractors, working for the US Embassy in Baghdad were injured in the blasts, but no American Embassy personnel were killed, said Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman.

Video images captured on a cell phone showed the second blast going off in a massive ball of flames, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.