At least 41 people were killed and 68 wounded on Wednesday when two car bombs ripped through a busy market in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, mowing down families as they crowded around a popular ice cream parlour, police said. A third car bomb was discovered and was being defused, the police said.
After the blasts, angry residents threw stones and empty bottles at Iraqi soldiers and accused them of failing to protect people in Sadr City, a sprawling, largely Shi'ite slum.
The blasts followed two days of suicide bombings last week in which 150 people died, stirring fears Iraq could descend into a new spiral of sectarian conflict just as it appeared to be emerging from six years of bloodshed.
Body parts lay scattered around the smoking wreck of a car after the explosions, while the wounded were piled into private cars, minibuses and on the back of a pick-up truck and rushed to hospital. Police vehicles cleared a way for the convoy.
The nearby shops set ablaze by one of the explosions included the popular Aziz al-Kaabi ice cream shop. Residents said it was usually crowded with families in the late afternoon, the time the bombs went off.
The second car bomb appeared to have exploded around 60 metres (yards) away near a part of the market specialising in birds and pets. Sadr City is home to more than two million of Baghdad's poorest people and is a stronghold of support for anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Many of last week's victims were Shi'ite pilgrims from Iran.
The sectarian violence ignited by the 2003 US-led invasion has receded sharply over the past year but insurgents, including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, continue to carry out suicide and car bombings in the oil-producing nation. The targets of last week's explosions in north-eastern Diyala province and Baghdad included a revered Shi'ite shrine, and many Iraqis fear a broader conflict if Shi'ite gunmen launch a wave of reprisal killings against Sunnis.
The government has pointed the finger of blame at al Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party. It said its security forces managed last Thursday to arrest the leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, the Islamic State of Iraq. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Tuesday the arrest of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi could provoke revenge attacks. Many Iraqis worry the violence may increase as US forces prepare to withdraw from urban bases by the end of June and ahead of national elections due at the end of the year.
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