Iraqi children had just run across to US troops for sweets in Baghdad yesterday when the bombs exploded, killing at least 35 youngsters.

In one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since major conflict was declared over, dozens of people were killed in a series of attacks across the country.

Three bombs - at least two of them suicide attacks - in Baghdad's al-Amel neighbourhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago.

The children, who were still on school holiday, said they had been drawn to the scene by US soldiers handing out sweets.

The blasts - at least two of which were car bombs - went off in swift succession, killing 42 and wounding 141 others, including ten US soldiers.

The bombs targeted a ceremony in which residents were celebrating the opening of a new sewage system, and a US military convoy was passing by at the same time.

Abdel Rahman Dawoud, 12, lying naked in a hospital bed with shrapnel embedded all over his body, said: ''The Americans called us, they told us, 'Come here, come here,' asking us if we wanted sweets.

"We went, then a car exploded."

Of the 131 Iraqis wounded in the blasts, 72 were children.

Grief-stricken parents wailed over the bodies of their children at the hospital morgue. One woman tore at her hair before pulling back the sheet covering her dead brother and kissing him.

One man carried his younger brother - both legs bandaged - to the hospital, where some children were put two to a bed because of the many wounded. Outside, women sat on the ground and wept as they awaited news of their children. Doctors struggled to treat the flood of victims, as pools of blood formed on the floor.

One boy lay swathed in bandages on a stretcher, his severed leg on a table beside him. Others were scarred by shrapnel, their clothes blown off by the force of the explosion.

US troops sealed off the area with tanks, and helicopters circled overhead.

Major Phil Smith, said the first two explosions targeted the ceremony, while the third was aimed at a nearby Iraqi National Guard checkpoint.

''This attack was carried out by evil people who do not want the Iraqis to celebrate and don't want reconstruction projects in Iraq,'' said Iraqi National Guard Lieutenant Ahmad Saad.

Hours earlier, a suicide car bomber struck in the Abu Ghraib area outside of Baghdad, killing a US soldier and at least two Iraqis.

In the northern city of Tal Afar, a car bomb targeting the police chief killed at least four people. The police chief escaped the assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, the US targeted a suspected terrorist safe house in Fallujah.

The military said intelligence reports indicated the house was being used by followers of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. At least four Iraqis were killed,including two women and one child.