IRAQ: A car bomb exploded in a crowd of labourers in central Baghdad yesterday, killing 114 in Iraq's worst single attack since February. A fireball engulfed men who gathered in Khadhimiya, a poor Shia district with high unemployment, hoping for a day's work gardening or building.
Police at the scene said the bomb was detonated remotely, but some survivors claimed a suicide bomber had lured a crowd to his minivan.
It was the bloodiest attack in a wave of bombings and shootings yesterday that left more than 150 people dead and 500 wounded.
More than a dozen bombs shook the capital in a series of apparently co-ordinated blasts, which started at dawn in Khadhimiya.
Health ministry officials said 88 died, while the interior ministry put the toll at 114, not far off the 125 killed in a suicide attack in Hilla last February.
Another car bomb, thought to have been detonated by a suicide bomber, killed 11 people in a queue to refill gas canisters. In the town of Taji, just north of Baghdad, 17 Shia men were dragged from their homes and executed by gunmen in military uniform.
An internet statement purportedly from al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the carnage and said it was a reprisal for the joint US/Iraqi army offensive in the town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border. Thousands of troops swept through the insurgent stronghold this week, killing and capturing more than 300 suspected militants. The statement said the radical Islamist group's response was a nationwide suicidebombing campaign.
"We would like to congratulate the Muslim nation and inform it the battle to avenge the Sunnis of Tal Afar has begun. Our brigades have joyfully set off to uphold their religion through death."
Yesterday's attacks exposed the government's inability to protect citizens from a sectarian campaign against the majority Shias. Targeting civilians is seen as an attempt to spark a backlash and spread chaos.
Shia clerics and politicians have restrained their followers but the Shia-dominated security forces are accused of abusing and murdering Sunnis. The attack in Taji, a rural town with Shia and Sunni residents, happened before dawn.
The 17 victims were assembled in the town square and shot, said one witness. It was the same area where about 1,000 Shia pilgrims died in a stampede on August 31st sparked by fears of a suicide bomber.
At least 12 other bombs shook the capital until 4pm, sending plumes of smoke into a balmy blue sky.
A bomb near a Shia cleric's office killed five and wounded 24. Other bombs targeted US and Iraqi troops and western security contractors, killing at least nine Iraqis and wounding two Americans.