BAGHDAD, 13 March 2006 — Insurgent attacks yesterday, including a series of three car bombs, left a trail of devastation across Baghdad killing at least 52 people as politicians rushed forward the opening of Parliament.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor at the trial of Saddam Hussein urged that the ex-president be swiftly hanged if found guilty.

At least 36 people were killed and 104 wounded when three car bombs exploded Sunday evening at crowded markets in the Sadr City Shiite district of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said quoting hospital figures.

16 more died and around 25 were hurt, mostly in Baghdad, in further car and roadside bombs, mortar and gunfire attacks, the official said.

A security scare at Baghdad International Airport prompted the US embassy to bar US government employees from taking outgoing commercial flights “until further notice.” An aviation source who declined to be identified said the security alert was triggered after a suspicious pack of cigarettes was found on the airport’s tarmac, as passengers identified their luggage before boarding a Royal Jordanian plane to Amman.

The package was tested and some mild explosives were found, the source said, dismissing the incident as a “slight security breach.”

The spike in violence came as Iraqi politicians bickered over the formation of a broad-based coalition government and extremists sought to take advantage of the political vacuum to further inflame sectarian tensions between the majority Shiites and the historically dominant Sunnis.

“There are continuous efforts by the terrorists to promote sectarian conflict so there is a need to deal with the threat on an urgent basis and form a government of national unity,” the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters.

He made the remarks after attending a meeting of top politicians who agreed to bring forward the opening of Parliament from March 19 to March 16.

The opening of Parliament was advanced “to indicate that things need to move on a faster pace,” Khalilzad said.

The Shiite-led government fears new attacks might target Shiite pilgrims streaming to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, in the south of the country, sparking a new wave of violence.

A recent spate of unrest that left over 500, mostly Sunni, dead followed the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, on Feb. 22.

The latest bombings in the Shiite working-class district of Sadr City, eastern Baghdad, targeted three markets.

In the first attack, two car bombs exploded at the Ula market, while another car bomb exploded at the Kayara market.

Authorities, who defused a fourth car bomb at a third market, called on police to increase their presence around Sunni mosques for fear of retaliation.

Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor at Saddam’s trial, Jaafar Mussawi, said on television that execution need not await the outcome of future trials if the ousted dictator were proven guilty and sentenced to death by the current court.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are being tried over the killing of 148 Shiites from the village of Dujail following an assassination bid against Saddam in 1982.

“If the court passes a death sentence on any of the defendants in the Dujail case, the law is clear, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days following the appeal,” Mussawi said.

“As for other cases (in which they have been charged), the court will only judge living defendants as those executed cannot be tried,” he added.

Saddam and his henchmen have also been charged in connection with other crimes, including the use of poison gas during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq against Iraqi Kurds in the northern town of Halabja, and the crushing of a Shiite revolt in the south of the country following the 1991 Gulf War.

Yesterday, three low-level members of Iraq’s former ruling party, on trial with Saddam and four other co-accused, denied involvement in the Dujail killings.

The 15th hearing in the trial, which opened in October, marked the first time the accused were invited to testify as to their role.