A female suicide bomber killed 45 people when she blew herself up at a popular pet market in central Baghdad on Friday, police said, in the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in six months.
Another 82 were wounded in the blast at the crowded Ghazil market, one of Baghdad’s most popular gathering places, which has been bombed at least three times in the past year.
In another attack, 27 people were killed and scores wounded at a separate bird market in southern Baghdad, police said.
Ambulances and police were trying to evacuate the wounded from the Ghazil market, witnesses said.
”I came here to enjoy myself. I don’t know how I survived,” said witness Abu Haider, who was covered in blood as he stood among ruined stalls and carcasses of birds and other animals.
”I was right there at the scene when the blast happened. It knocked me over. When I managed to get up, I saw dozens had been killed and wounded,” he said.
While attacks continue to fall across Iraq, the latest blasts underscore United States military warnings that a return to the violence that took Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war is still possible.
Police had earlier said a bomb had been hidden inside a box of birds at the Ghazil market but later said a female bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives next to a bird stall.
Witnesses said ambulances were trying to push through packed streets to get to the scene after the blast in almost exactly the same spot as a bombing which killed 13 people on November 23.
Police and civil defence officials were piling wounded into wheelbarrows, cars and the back of pick-up trucks while US soldiers helped secure the area, witnesses said.
Big blow
The market only opens on Fridays and is a popular spectacle visited by hundreds of Baghdadis.
The November 23 blast, caused by a bomb hidden inside a box of birds, also wounded 57 in the Ghazil market, which sells a colourful range of creatures from guard dogs and monkeys to parrots, pigeons and tropical fish.
The November Ghazil market bombing was a big psychological blow for residents of the capital who had begun returning to the streets of Baghdad after security crackdowns last year helped arrest a slide towards all-out sectarian civil war.
The market has been bombed a number of times, with about 10 people killed in two separate blasts there in January and February last year.
The latest blast was the worst in Baghdad for six months. Fifty people were killed when a fuel truck exploded in the capital on August 1 last year.
Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq, with the number of attacks down 60% since last June, allowing Iraqis to venture out to markets and restaurants as they attempt to return to a semblance of normal life.
The declining violence has been attributed to 30 000 extra US troops, which became fully deployed last June, and the growth of primarily Sunni Arab local police units.
The units sprang up in the western province of Anbar in late 2006 and helped drive al-Qaeda out of their former stronghold.
Despite the improved security, US commanders warn that Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda, blamed for most large-scale attacks in Iraq, remains a dangerous enemy. Al-Qaeda has regrouped in the north after being driven out of Anbar and from around Baghdad.
On Thursday, Iraqi government figures showed that 466 Iraqi civilians had died violently in January, more than 76% lower than the 1 971 killed in January 2007. — Reuters