Bombs in Iraq kill at least 104 in Shia areas

CBC News

Multiple suicide bombers struck predominantly Shia markets Thursday in Baghdad and north of the capital, killing at least 104 people and wounding dozens more.

Two of the suicide bombers struck a market in the Shaab neighbourhood of northeastern Baghdad at 6 p.m. local time, killing at least 61 people and wounding 40, Iraqi police and security officials said.

At about the same time, three suicide car bombers attacked a market in the town of Khalis north of Baghdad, killing at least 43 people and wounding 86, according to police and officials in the predominantly Shia town.

The first attacker in Khalis drove his explosives-laden car into the crowded area, followed in five-minute intervals by the other two bombers, who apparently were aiming at rescue crews and onlookers gathering in the aftermath, police said.

Police said the bombers came from two separate directions.

Khalis is in volatile Diyala province, where fighting has been raging among Sunni insurgents, Shia militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

It has been struck by bombings several times in recent months, most recently on Jan. 22 when a bomb followed by a mortar attack struck a market, killing at least 12 people and wounding 29, police said.

The Shaab neighbourhood of Baghdad was one of the first targets of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers searching for Shia militants and weapons in a six-week-old security sweep aimed at stopping the sectarian violence.

'I saw heads separated from the bodies'

By Ahmed Rasheed

Baghdad - Suicide bombers killed nearly 130 people in a crowded market in a Shi'a district of Baghdad and a mainly Shi'a town on Thursday, one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in months.

The upsurge in sectarian violence threatens all-out civil war and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'a, called for restraint and urged Iraqis to work with security forces to prevent the violence spiralling out of control. Bombs earlier this week in northern Iraq sparked mass reprisal killings.

Two suicide bombers wearing vests packed with explosives killed 76 people in a market in the Shaab district of northern Baghdad, police and medical sources said, in what appeared to be the latest of a string of attacks on Shi'a districts and towns blamed on al-Qaeda. More than 100 were wounded.

'It is impossible to tell the exact number of dead'

"It is impossible to tell the exact number of dead because we are basically counting body parts," said a health ministry official in Baghdad, who asked not to be named.

Most of the victims were women and children, who had been out shopping in the crowded market before the start of the nightly curfew, he said.

At about the same time, three suicide car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Khalis, 80km north of Baghdad, killing 53 people and wounding 103, police said.

There has been a spike in bloodshed, particularly outside the Iraqi capital, in recent days. Violence between majority Shi'a and minority Sunnis has killed tens of thousands in the past year.

On Tuesday two truck bombs killed 85 people in a Shi'ite area of Tal Afar in northern Iraq. In the hours after those blasts Shi'ite gunmen, including police, shot dead up to 70 Sunni Arab men in reprisal.

'It was a scene of horror'

The top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, confirmed on Thursday police appeared to have carried out "retribution killings" after the bombings, which he blamed on al-Qaeda. Iraq's Sunni vice-president urged the Shi'a-led government to do more to purge the security forces of militias.

In Khalis, one car bomb exploded in a commercial area and a second at a police checkpoint leading to the police headquarters and court building, police said. A third bomber attacked police patrols rushing to the scene.

"It was a scene of horror. There were charred bodies and human remains scattered about," said one policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A survivor of the Shaab market blast in Baghdad, Wissam Hashim Ali, 27, said the market had been "very, very crowded" at the time of the blasts.

"I saw heads separated from the bodies and legs blown off," he said in hospital, where he was receiving treatment for his wounds.

Maliki's office said in a statement the prime minister condemned the bombs and called on Iraqis "not to let evil-doers have their way and to cooperate with security forces, who are determined to cleanse Iraq of terrorism".

New US Ambassador Ryan Crocker told his swearing-in ceremony that "terrorists, insurgents and militias continue to threaten security in Baghdad and around the country" and called Iraq America's "most critical foreign policy challenge".

The US Senate, after the House of Representatives, passed a war-funding bill on Thursday that sets a goal of withdrawing all US combat soldiers from Iraq within a year.

President George Bush, who has vowed to veto the measure, is sending up to 30 000 additional troops to Iraq, most of them to support a major security crackdown under way in Baghdad, epicentre of the violence.

While this crackdown has succeeded in reducing the number of deaths in the capital, violence has surged elsewhere.

Additional reporting by Dean Yates and Claudia Parsons in Baghdad.

Mottaki at United Nations Security Council

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