BAGHDAD, Jan 22: Bombs ripped through markets killing at least 100 people in and around Baghdad on Monday as US and Iraqi forces prepared for a large-scale assault on insurgents and militias in the violent capital.
Two car bombs exploded shortly after midday at the busy second-hand Haraj market in the heart of Baghdad, killing 88 Iraqis, security officials said.
A few hours later, a combination of mortar fire and a roadside bomb killed another 12 people at a popular market in the town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad.
The Haraj bombs exploded seconds apart, sending twin columns of thick smoke billowing above the Bab al-Sharki district on the east bank of the Tigris river.
It was the deadliest attack in the capital this year and came less than a week after twin bombs killed 70 people, mostly students, outside a Baghdad university.
Hospital and security sources put the casualty toll at 88 dead and 160 wounded in Haraj market, which is usually filled with traders selling used electronic goods, watches, clothing and medicines.
“There were so many victims they were piled up on wooden market carts, the wounded on top of the dead, and hauled to ambulances and police vehicles,” an AFP photographer at the site said.
“Improvised rescue workers made their way through the carnage amid the cries of those wounded.”At the nearby Al-Kindi hospital, some of the victims' relatives squatted on the ground, holding their heads in grief, while others cried before bodies lined up on the ground and covered with light blue and black plastic sheets.
But the deadly mayhem did not stop there.
The bomb at Khalis was placed in a vegetable cart and ripped through a crowd of people as they shopped late in the day in the town, which is located in the volatile Diyala province, Lieutenant Ahmad Mohammed said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad another 10 people were killed in mortar attacks, while police also recovered 27 corpses of men shot to death execution-style, a security official said.
Insurgents have stepped up attacks as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the US authorities are busy putting in place a new security plan to secure the capital.
The bombings also came as the US military continued to suffer heavy casualties, with 46 personnel killed since the start of the month.
Twenty-five US troops died on Saturday alone, including 12 in a helicopter crash, in one of the highest single-day death tolls since the US-led invasion of March 2003.
The aircraft may have been shot down with a shoulder-fired missile, a senior US defence official said in Washington Monday.
“Some reporting in operational channels indicates that it may have been shot down. It may have been a shoulder-fired missile,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.—AFP
