A suicide bomber struck outside a college in Baghdad today killing at least 40 people as a series of other blasts and rocket attacks shook the capital.

The bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives near to the main entrance of the Economy and Administration College in eastern Baghdad, as students left morning classes and others arrived for afternoon ones.

Glass tore through classrooms where students were taking exams and the blast left cement walls pockmarked by shrapnel and twisted parts of the metal gate and turnstile.

Students used rags and towels to try to mop up the large pools of blood that covered the reception floor and parents who had rushed to the site collapsed in tears after learning their children had been killed or injured.

A senior police official said that at least 40 people, mostly students, were killed in the blast and another 35 wounded.

Muhanad Nasir, 22, a student, who suffered wounds to his head and chest, saw a commotion at the gate then felt the force of the explosion. “When I returned to consciousness, I found myself in the hospital,” he said.

Other students shouted: “May God curse the terrorists,” while others sat on the ground outside the campus buildings weeping.

The college is located in a mostly Shia district, but it does not limit its enrolment to that particular group. It is part of Mustansiriyah University, located in another part of the city, which was the target of twin car bombs and a suicide blast last month that killed 70 people.

Meanwhile, insurgents launched a series of car and rocket attacks that killed 11 others across Baghdad as they continued to defy efforts by US and Iraqi forces to stabilise the capital city.

Two Katyusha rockets ripped through a busy market in the Shia area of Abu Dsher of Doura neighbourhood, in southern Baghdad killing at least 10 people.

Earlier, a car bomb killed one person and wounded four near the edge of the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. The blast was about 100 metres from the Iranian embassy, but police said they did not believe it was the target and the embassy compound was not damaged.

The attacks followed an exchange of artillery and mortar fire between US troops and suspected Sunni insurgents south of the capital - where a major security crackdown in the capital launched earlier this month has tried to halt sectarian violence.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki expressed optimism yesterday about the 10-day-old security plan and said that US and Iraqi forces had killed about 400 suspected militants since it began.

US forces have set up joint security outposts with Iraqi forces around the city but the crackdown does appear to have reduced the number of bodies found tortured and shot in the city, believed to be victims of death squads. However, US commanders said that it will take months to judge the success of the offensive.

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