Scores killed in Baghdad car bomb blasts

Iraqis walk past a crater left by the explosion of a car bomb in Baghdad yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Thunderous explosions and dense black smoke swirled through the center of Baghdad yesterday when at least one car bomb blew up in an underground parking garage, setting off dozens of secondary explosions and killing at least 76 people, police said. A second bombing nearby killed at least nine.

The blasts shattered the city center on the first anniversary, according to the Muslim lunar calendar, of the bombing last year of the important Shiite Golden Dome shrine in Samarra, north of the capital. That attack by al-Qaeda militants in Iraq set off a torrent of sectarian bloodletting that has turned Baghdad and much of central Iraq into a battleground.

A column of smoke hundreds of meters wide billowed a thousand meters into the air above the market near the east bank of the Tigris River and near the Central Bank building.

Ambulances and pickup trucks rushed many of the nearly 125 wounded to nearby al-Kindi hospital in the largely Shiite region that has been hit by a series of deadly bombings since the beginning of the year.

The worst carnage occurred about 12:25pm, shortly after the Iraqi government called for a 15-minute period of silence for the bombing of the golden domed shrine in Samarra a year ago.

There were conflicting accounts about whether one or two car bombs were involved, but the blast obliterated the shops and stalls in a central building in the Shorja market district and billowing smoke blackened the entire area on a beautiful sunny day in Baghdad.

Debris and clothing mannequins were scattered in thick pools of blood on the floor of the warehouse-type building while men tossed plastic chairs onto piles. Two men carried the limp body of one of the victims, while small fires burned in the rubble on the street outside the building.

Police said at least 59 people were killed and 148 wounded, warning the toll was likely to rise as more bodies were pulled from the rubble.

A shop owner whose business was set on fire said one of the cars was parked in a garage under a two-story market called al-Arabi, next to the Iraqi central bank. Mohammed Najaim said flames were coming out of the garage, which holds hundreds of cars.

About half an hour earlier, a bomb hidden in a bag exploded in a crowded area near a popular take-away falafel restaurant in the Bab al-Sharqi area, not far from Shorja, police said, adding that at least nine people were killed and 19 wounded in that blast.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi court yesterday raised the sentence against late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's vice president to death by hanging for the killings of Shiites in the town of Dujail.

The decision had been expected after an appeals court ruled that Taha Yassin Ramadan's previous sentence of life in prison was too lenient.

If the ruling is upheld on appeal, Ramadan would be the fourth Saddam-era official to be hung.

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