A car bomb tore through a crowded market in a poor Shia district of eastern Baghdad today , killing 59 people and wounding 78 in the bloodiest attack in the capital for weeks.
A Sunni Arab member of parliament and seven of her bodyguards were abducted by gunmen in the northeast of the capital, colleagues said.
Police said the market bomb went off as a police patrol was passing a parked car in the Sadr City district, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Angry crowds gathered at the scene and turned on reporters who arrived to record the aftermath of the explosion, which boomed across the city shortly before 10 am local time.
It was the deadliest single attack in Iraq since US forces killed al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an air strike on June 7th.
It also came a day after Osama bin Laden was heard in an Internet recording hailing the Jordanian as a "lion of Jihad" and calling for revenge attacks by Sunni militants.
Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered US and Iraqi forces to mount a security clampdown on Baghdad three weeks ago but results appear to be mixed.
A US officer said yesterday that attacks had actually risen as police and troops filled the streets and mounted increased numbers of random checkpoints.
Mr Maliki, sworn in six weeks ago at the head of a national unity government, unveiled a broad -- and somewhat vague - plan for promoting national reconciliation last Sunday.
He was expected to begin a three-state tour of Sunni Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, on Saturday, seeking backing and investment from Sunni Arab neighbours. It is his first foreign trip since taking office. Sunni leaders, from the minority dominant under Saddam Hussein, took part in December's parliamentary election after snubbing previous US-sponsored ballots since the 2003 invasion.