At least 68 people were killed today and 240 others injured - including four British soldiers - after a series of suspected suicide attacks in and around the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

Ten schoolchildren were among those killed when co-ordinated car bombs ripped through three police stations at rush-hour this morning in the British-controlled city.

Two school buses passing by a police station in the Saudia district were destroyed. One was carrying students from a girls' middle school and the other carried primary school children.

Cars outside the police station were charred. The interior of one of the school buses was burnt out, and the seats were shredded.

At about the same time, a fourth explosion hit a police academy in the nearby town of al-Zubayr, injuring the British soldiers.

An MoD spokeswoman in Basra said: "All four attacks seem to have been carried out by suicide bombers."

Tony Blair visited the police training academy earlier this year.

British police officers were training Iraqi recruits there during his New Year visit to the area.

Mr Blair said today that those who perpetrated the Basra outrages wanted to stifle the spread of democracy in Iraq.

He told MPs that there was "intense anger" among ordinary Iraqis towards those targeting innocent civilians and said that the terrorists were becoming increasingly desperate.

The Prime Minister ruled out sending more troops to Basra to aid the 10,000 already there, but said that the situation would be kept under review.

The Mayor of Basra, Wael Abdul-Hafeez, said that the remains of a bearded suicide bomber had been recovered from one of the bombsites and blamed al-Qaeda for the blasts.

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