BAGHDAD: A wave of near-simultaneous bombs ripped through crowded Baghdad markets and a packed minibus yesterday, killing 48 people including women and children, and making April the deadliest month of the year in Iraq.
Three blasts occurred within minutes of each other in markets in the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City and two other neighborhoods during afternoon rush hour when they were packed with mothers and schoolchildren.
The blasts went off in quick succession less than a week after bombings claimed more than 150 lives over a two-day span. The attacks have raised fears that suspected Sunni insurgents are regrouping and trying to reignite sectarian strife as the US military begins to withdraw.
There were conflicting death tolls yesterday, as is usual in the chaotic aftermath of bombings. Earlier, police and hospital officials said 41 people died and more than 60 people also were wounded. An Interior Ministry official gave a slightly higher figure, saying 45 people had died.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to release the information. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but car bombs and suicide attacks bear the hallmark of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups.
Angry young men gathered around the bloodstained pavement and twisted heaps of metal from the cars, which had been parked near a restaurant and an ice cream stand.
The increase in high-profile attacks in recent weeks has raised questions about the ability of Iraq’s forces to sustain security gains as they increasingly take over from the Americans.
The blasts also followed the announcement by the Iraqi government that it has captured the alleged leader of an Al-Qaeda front group. On Tuesday, the Iraqi military presented the first image of the man it says is Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, saying his arrest would deal a major blow to the insurgency.
Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim Al-Mussawi said three other explosives-laden cars had been found but defused near the site along with three more in Shiite areas elsewhere in the city. He blamed the attacks on followers of Baghdadi, saying “absolutely it is a message of reprisal by these terrorist gangs.”
The US military, however, said Al-Qaeda was behind the recent attacks targeting Shiites, saying it was a bid to provoke the kind of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.
“They are very emotionally charged targets. They are meant to go after a vulnerable aspect of society, to just literally kill as many innocent civilians as they randomly can,” Maj. Gen. David Perkins told The Associated Press yesterday.
“From Al-Qaeda’s point of view, they are trying to generate a retribution attack and start ethno-sectarian violence up again.” However, Perkins insisted the insurgents remained unable to carry out such attacks on a daily basis. “We have seen a couple of recent high-profile attacks, which obviously are a concern. But we don’t think that’s a fundamental shift,” he said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a minibus in a Sunni area in southern Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding three others, according to police and hospital officials. Tensions also rose yesterday near the northern disputed city of Kirkuk when US troops opened fire after being ambushed while distributing grants to Iraqi businesses.
