Baghdad, Iraq ? Striking in rapid succession, suicide car bombers bent on death for “collaborators” devastated the Red Cross headquarters and three police stations Monday, killing about three dozen people and wounding more than 200 in the bloodiest day in Baghdad since the start of the U.S. occupation.

From north to south in this city of 5 million, the explosions in a 45-minute period left streetscapes of broken bodies, twisted wreckage and Iraqis unnerved by an escalating underground war. The dead included a U.S. soldier, eight Iraqi policemen and at least 26 Iraqi civilians.

Iraqi and U.S. authorities in Baghdad blamed the coordinated quadruple blasts on foreign fighters intent on targeting those they accuse of collaborating with U.S. forces. One captive would-be bomber was said to carry a Syrian passport.

Not only were Monday’s attacks coordinated, they also involved disguise: the use of an Iraqi ambulance in the Red Cross attack, a police car and uniform in a police station explosion.

Aid jeopardized

The blasts, which echoed the Aug. 19 bombing of the U.N. headquarters here, left the Red Cross and other aid agencies examining whether they should decrease their presence in Iraq. Paris-based Medecins Sans Frontieres said it would reduce its seven-member expatriate team in Baghdad.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said he hoped nongovernment organizations, contractors and the United Nations would stay in Iraq.

“They are needed. Their work is needed. And if they are driven out, then the terrorists win,” Powell said.

Series of attacks

The differing theories about who was behind the bombings underscored the confusion generated by two days of bold, stunning attacks, beginning with a rocket barrage on a U.S. headquarters hotel Sunday that killed Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring of Winter Springs, Fla., wounded 15 other people and sent Americans scurrying to safety, including the visiting deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.

Later Sunday, three U.S. soldiers were killed in two attacks in the Baghdad area.

Then, at 8:30 a.m. Monday, on a warm, clear morning beginning the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the first of four thunderous explosions rocked the city.

A police car, somehow commandeered for a suicide mission and driven by a man in police uniform, blew up after entering the courtyard of the al-Baya’a police station in the al-Doura neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said police Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim, the deputy interior minister.

Just five minutes later, a second blast struck the local headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a small, three-story building on a quiet street in central Baghdad.

Twenty minutes after the ICRC attack, another car bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle at a police station near a marketplace in north Baghdad.

After another 20 minutes, the fourth suicide bomber struck in southwest Baghdad, at the al-Khudra police station.