BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents exploded two car bombs at the gates of the main U.S.-Iraqi headquarters in Baghdad and near major hotels today, killing at least 21 people and wounding 96. In Fallujah, U.S. warplanes struck what the military called terror hideouts, killing 11, according to doctors who said women and children were among the dead.

The two car bombs ripped through central Baghdad streets about an hour apart.

In the first explosion, a four-wheel-drive vehicle packed with explosives detonated outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

Yarmouk Hospital received 15 bodies and 81 wounded from the explosion, said Sabah Aboud, the facility's chief registration official.

The blast went off at 8:45 a.m. near a checkpoint at the western entrance to the complex, said Maj. Phil Smith, a spokesman for the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division. No coalition forces were hurt in either of today's blasts, Smith said.

"I was thrown 10 meters (yards) away and hit the wall," said Wissam Mohammed, 30, who was visiting a nearby recruiting center for Iraqi security forces. He lay in a bed at Yarmouk Hospital, his right hand broken, his head wrapped in bandages and his clothes stained with blood.

The second car bomb exploded at 9:45, targeting a convoy of 4-wheel drive vehicles leaving a complex of major hotels where foreign contractors and journalists reside. American and Iraqi forces opened fire after the blast, but it was not immediately clear what they were shooting at, witnesses said.

At least six people were killed and 15 wounded, said Tahsin al-Freiji of the U.S.-trained Facility Protection Service, which guards major installations in the city.

A pickup truck loaded with dates exploded as it plowed into the three-vehicle convoy as they emerged from a parking area shared by several major hotels, al-Freiji said, speaking at the scene. One of the vehicles in the convoy was destroyed, and shrapnel hit the nearby Palestine and Baghdad hotels.

Minutes later, unidentified gunmen began shooting from the rooftops and police returned fire, said Tahsin al-Kaabi, another FPS member.

The pickup truck carrying the explosives was ripped in half with one part left dangling from a shop sign on the opposite side of the street.

At least five other cars were charred, including one of the targeted four-wheel drive vehicles, which had a burned body left sitting in the front passenger seat. Another man was thrown against a garage wall, his body crumpled in the street. A head and other body parts were strewn in the road amid shards of glass.

"I was on my way to work. We heard a big boom and I briefly passed out," said Razaq Hadi, 36, who was riding a minibus that was damaged in the blast. "I saw seven of the passengers who were seriously wounded being taken out through the broken windows."

The driver was killed. "I saw his body torn apart," said Hadi, who was covered in the man's blood.

Some of the injured, including a man with bloodied bandages wrapped around his head, were helped into nearby hotels. Others were rushed to surrounding hospitals.

Thick black smoke rose from the scene and a pair of helicopters circled the area as troops blocked off the road.

Both the Green Zone and the area around the hotels have been the target of previous suicide attacks that have killed dozens of people.

A third car bomb exploded in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, said Capt. Angela Bowman, a military spokeswoman. Two people believed to be transporting the explosives and a civilian bystander were killed. Officials at a nearby hospital said they treated 11 people injured in the blast.

In Baqouba, a police commander was assassinated in an early morning drive-by shooting by unknown gunmen, police said. Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at Baqouba's municipal building, killing one person and wounding seven in the city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

There were also assassinations in Baghdad, where gunmen killed a senior official of Iraq's Sciences and Technology Ministry and a female employee near the southeastern Zayona suburb, said Abdul-Rahman said.

In rebel-held Fallujah, American warplanes unleashed strikes on two houses early today, killing at least 11 people, hospital officials said.

The military, which regularly accuses hospitals of inflating casualty figures, said the strikes targeted followers of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and their associates.