More than 40 people were killed in bomb attacks in Iraq this morning, including 24 at a busy market in Baghdad where insurgents seem intent on defying a major US-backed security clampdown now in its fourth week.
A victim of a bomb attack in a market is rushed to a hospital in
A further 35 people were wounded in the attack on the Shorja wholesale market in downtown, police said.
Attacks in recent days have shattered a relative calm this past month.
A bomb attack in the nearby Karrada district killed two people and wounded 21 around the same time. A first device went off near a busy fuel station, drawing a police unit in response. Five officers were then wounded when a car detonated near them.
Three hours earlier, a bomb apparently left on a parked bicycle blasted a crowd of young Iraqi men outside an army recruiting office, killing 12 people and wounding 38.
Hilla provincial police spokesman Captain Muthanna al-Mamuri said the bicycle, laden with an explosive package, appeared to have been left early in the morning close to the office in the centre of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
Recruitment centres for the Iraqi army and police, key elements of Washington's strategy for pulling out its own troops, have been frequent targets for insurgents from the Sunni Arab minority, including al-Qaeda Islamists, who oppose the rise of the Shia Muslim majority in US-backed elections.
Building up Iraq's security forces to take over from some 150,000 mainly American troops is proving a major challenge for the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is scheduled to assume formal command of Iraqi forces next month.
Further evidence of the uphill battle Iraq's US-trained new forces are facing in fighting armed groups came on Wednesday when Iraq's defence minister said gunmen had "executed" 13 Iraqi soldiers after their ammunition ran out during fierce clashes in the town of Diwaniya south of Baghdad on Monday.
The 12-hour battle, among the bloodiest between Iraqi forces and Shia militiamen claiming allegiance to radical young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, left at least 30 people dead by official accounts, and possibly dozens more.