Car bombs shatter Baghdad's oldest, largest market; at least 78 killed

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Thunderous car bombs shattered a crowded marketplace in the heart of Baghdad on Monday, triggering secondary explosions, engulfing an eight-story building in flames and killing at least 78 people in the latest of a series of similar attacks aimed at the country's Shiite majority.

The blasts in three parked cars obliterated shops and stalls and left bodies scattered among mannequins and other debris in pools of blood. Dense smoke blackened the area and rose hundreds of feet from the market district on the east bank of the Tigris River. Small fires, fueled by clothing and other goods, burned for hours in the rubble-strewn street as firefighters battled blazes in two buildings.

"Where is the government? Where is the security plan?" survivors screamed. "We have had enough. We have lost our money and goods and our source of living."

Security push

The attack appeared timed to coincide with the first anniversary -- on the Muslim lunar calendar -- of the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra north of Baghdad, an al-Qaida provocation that unleashed the torrent of sectarian bloodletting that has gripped the capital for months.

Monday's bombings wrecked the Shorja market, Baghdad's oldest, a day after joint U.S. and Iraqi forces temporarily sealed an adjacent neighborhood. The operation was part of the latest Baghdad security push to which President Bush has committed an additional 21,500 American troops.

Nationwide, 139 people were killed or found dead in violence on Monday, according to police reports. About 30 minutes before the attack on the market, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest in a crowd near a popular falafel restaurant in the nearby Bab al-Sharqi area. Nine people were killed and 19 wounded.

A 15-minute period of commemoration in the capital marking the February 2006 attack on the al-Askariya shrine had just ended when attack on the market took place.

Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, told Iraqiya state television that three suspects were arrested -- an Iraqi and two foreigners -- in the attack on the marketplace.

The car bombs exploded within seconds of each other. One of the cars was parked near the entrance to a parking garage under one of the two targeted buildings, about 200 yards apart.

Ambulances and pickup trucks rushed many of the 166 wounded to nearby al-Kindi Hospital in the largely Shiite neighborhood, which has been hit by a series of deadly bombings this year.

Sahib Abbas, 50, who owns a menswear shop in one of the targeted buildings, watched the recovery efforts in a daze and barefoot, his face covered with soot. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost in this bombing," he said.

Many shopkeepers were caught in the second blast as they ran into the street to see what had happened after the first bombing.

"I cannot go back to my shop now," Abbas said. "Who is going to compensate us for our losses? All the money we gathered all our lives is gone in a moment. I cannot talk any more. The source of my children's living is lost."

Elsewhere in Baghdad, some roads and bridges were closed after al-Maliki called for government offices to set aside time to remember the Samarra bombing. The statement announcing the ceremony urged all citizens to "chant `God is great' in all the mosques, and to ring bells in all the churches."

The anniversary fell on Monday according to the Islamic lunar calendar. The lunar month is never longer than 30 days or shorter than 29. The beginning of each lunar month is set by religious authorities. The Samarra attack took place on Feb. 22, 2006, according to the Western calendar.

"The explosion of the holy shrine pushed the country into blind violence, in which tens of thousands of innocents were killed. No one knows but Allah when this tragedy will be over," Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, said in a statement issued Monday before the bombings.

Al-Sistani urged the Iraqi government to rebuild the shrine, whose golden dome was partially torn off by the blast. The compound has since been locked and guarded by Iraqi police. But he also called for restraint among those observing the anniversary.

About 16,000 demonstrators flooded the main street of the southern city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, marching toward two Shiite shrines in that holy city. Hundreds of police stood guard. Participants rallied with placards reading, "No to terrorism" and "Iraqis are one people, whether Shiite or Sunni."

In the capital, hundreds of men chanted and beat their chests and drums as they carried a replica of the Samarra mosque before speeches by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Iraq's most powerful Shiite politician, who also demanded the reconstruction of the al-Askariya shrine, site of the graves of two Shiite saints.

"The fact that the two shrines have been left for a year in this tragic condition is evidence of our predicament in Iraq," al-Hakim said.