Baghdad, Iraq – A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with a ton of explosives hidden beneath cooking oil, canned food and bags of flour obliterated a Baghdad food market on Saturday, killing at least 132 people in one of the most fearsome attacks in the capital since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The explosion was the deadliest attack in the capital since a series of car bombs and mortars killed at least 215 people in the Shiite district of Sadr City on Nov. 23.
It was fifth major bombing in less than a month targeting predominantly Shiite districts in Baghdad and a provincial city to the south. This one leveled about 30 shops and 40 houses, witnesses said.
Hospital officials said 132 people were killed and 305 were wounded in the thunderous explosion that sent a column of smoke into the sky on the east bank of the Tigris River. The nearby al-Kindi hospital – quickly overwhelmed – began turning away the wounded and directing ambulances to hospitals in the Shiite Sadr City neighborhood.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the bombing was “an example of what the forces of evil will do to intimidate the Iraqi people.”
The bombing came just days before American and Iraqi forces were expected to start an all-out assault on Sunni and Shiite gunmen and bombers in the capital.
Suspicion immediately fell on Sunni insurgents – al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied groups in particular.
In the hours after the explosion, Shiite and Sunni mortar teams traded fire across the darkened city. Two people were killed and 20 wounded in one predominantly Sunni district.
The White House called the bombing an atrocity and said, “Free nations of the world must not stand by while terrorists commit mass murder in an attempt to derail democratic progress in Iraq and throughout the greater Middle East.”
Violence shattered the northern city of Kirkuk as well. Eight bombs exploded within two hours, the opening blast a suicide car bomber apparently targeting the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
Not far from the Sadriyah marketplace where Saturday’s attack occurred, a suicide bomber crashed his car into the Bab al-Sharqi market 12 days ago and killed 88 people.
South of Baghdad, a pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives Thursday among shoppers in a crowded outdoor market in the Shiite city of Hillah, killing at least 73 people and wounding 163.
An Iraqi militant group tied to al-Qaeda in Iraq announced, meanwhile, it had launched its own new strategy to counter the coming U.S.-Iraqi crackdown.
In an audiotape posted on a website commonly used by the insurgents, a voice purported to be that of Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi said the group would “widen the circle of battles” beyond Baghdad to all of Iraq.
