BAGHDAD, Dec 12: Insurgents set off two bombs in a main square of central Baghdad where scores of Iraqis were waiting for jobs as day labourers on Tuesday, killing at least 71 people and wounding 151, police said.

The carefully coordinated attack in Tayaran Square at 7am involved a parked car bomb and a suicide attacker who drove up in a minibus, pretending to hire day labourers, then set off his explosive as they got into his vehicle, said police Lt Bilal Ali.

The simultaneous explosions, which occurred about 30 meters apart, shattered windows in store fronts, left craters and blood stains in the road, and set fire to about 10 other cars.

At least 71 Iraqis, including seven policemen, were killed in the attack and 151 people wounded, said police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid and Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said.

Ali said most of the victims were Shias from poor areas of the capital such as Sadr City.

“In the first explosion, I saw people falling over, some of them blown apart. When the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed me into a wall of my store and I fainted,” said Khalil Ibrahim, 41, a shop owner. He was interviewed at a local hospital where he had been rushed to be treated for shrapnel wounds to his head and back.

When the attack occurred, police at a nearby checkpoint fired random shots in several directions, but residents soon rushed to the devastated area to see if friends or relatives had been killed or wounded.

In one area, mangled bodies were piled up at the side of the road and partially covered with paper. Two Iraqi men sat on a nearby sidewalk crying and sometimes covering their faces with their hands.

“The driver of the minibus lured the people to hire them as labourers, and after they gathered he detonated the vehicle,” said another witness, Ali Hussein. Taking hold of an older man who was walking by in a daze with a bloody bandage tied around his head, Hussein said: “Look at this injured man. He comes from a big family.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shia majority, blamed the attack on Saddamists and Takfiri (Sunni extremists).

“We condemn this horrible crime and Iraq's security forces will chase the criminals and present them to the justice,” he said in a statement.

In a speech, Parliament speaker Mahmoud Al Mashhadani, a Sunni, said: “Today, there was a massacre, the kind that Iraqis are used to every morning.” He said the attack targeted poor people who were trying to feed their families, “turning them into pieces of flesh. God's curse upon those who are behind this.”

He urged the divided legislature “to find a solution” to Iraq's many problems.—AP