Four large bombs exploded in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad yesterday, killing nearly 200 people, making it the deadliest day since the start eight weeks ago of the US-led “surge” aimed at pacifying the capital.

The heaviest toll was caused by a car bomb detonated in a crowd at Sadriyah market, in central Baghdad. Police said that it killed about 140 people and wounded another 150, making it the most lethal single bomb attack in Baghdad since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Among the dead were several construction workers who had been rebuilding the Shia marketplace after a bombing there in February destroyed shops and killed 137 people.

One of those wounded, Salih Mustafa, 28, said that he was waiting for a minibus home when the blast came at 4.05pm.

“I rushed with others to help the victims,” he said. “I saw three bodies in a wooden cart, and civilian cars were helping to transfer the victims. It was really a horrible scene.”

As firefighters doused blazing cars, angry relatives gathered chanting “Down with Maliki. Where is the security plan?” in a reference to the Iraqi Prime Minister who has overseen the surge tactics. Iraqi and US soldiers on the scene were pelted with stones.

As part of the surge, blast walls were supposed to be built around vulnerable markets, a favourite target for Sunni extremists bent on killing Shia.

About an hour earlier a suicide car bomber had crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the biggest Shia neighbourhood and a stronghold of the militia led by the radical cleric Hoja-toleslam Moqtada al-Sadr.

The explosion killed at least 35 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 45. Smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled to drag victims from the smouldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.

Earlier still, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighbourhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.

The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the central Rusafi area. Four people were killed and six wounded, police said.

Four policemen were killed in Baghdad when gunmen ambushed their patrol south of the city centre. US officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the surge, which boosted US troop numbers in the capital and had them working in close cooperation with Iraqi forces, was begun on February 14.

In the past week, however, there have been several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that wrecked a bridge across the Tigris river. “We’ve seen both inspiring progress and too much evidence that we still face many grave challenges,” Major-General William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, told reporters. “We’ve always said securing Baghdad would not be easy.”

US troops killed five suspected insurgents and captured 30 others in a raid in Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, a day after police uncovered 17 decomposing corpses beneath two school yards in the provincial capital.

The raid took place near Karmah, a town northeast of Fallujah, which has been a stronghold for Sunni insurgents. American forces raided a group of buildings they suspected was being used by militants.

Deadly attacks

88 killed in car bombings, Baghdad market, Jan 22

61 double suicide bombing, Hilla market, Feb 1

137 lorry bomb, Baghdad market, Feb 3

71 multiple car bombings, Baghdad market, Feb 12

105 double suicide bombing, Hilla, March 6

152 double lorry bombing, Tal Afar, March 27

Source: Reuters

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