HILLAH, Iraq — A car bomb exploded in a crowded livestock market south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 12 people and injuring scores of others, police said.
The attackers parked the car in the market during one of its busiest days, detonating it by remote control, said Maj. Gen. Fadhil Raddad, the commander of the Babil provincial police force. Virtually all of the victims were civilians who had come to sell cattle and other livestock in this central Iraqi city, 60 miles south of the capital.
“I was standing at one side of the market working as I do every day, and then suddenly there was this huge explosion,” said Kassim Abdullah, 40, a butcher who was injured in the leg and neck and spoke from his hospital bed.
“This was a cold-blooded crime against poor, simple people who were here to make a living,” he added. “I can’t understand why we would be targeted.”
Although violence in Iraq is at its lowest level since 2003 and 2004, Thursday’s attack underscored the ability of insurgents to stage deadly assaults. In recent weeks, there have been dramatic attacks across Iraq against U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Raddad, the police commander, said the perpetrators apparently had planned the attack on the market well in advance and it had been designed to inflict maximum casualties.
Also Wednesday, gunmen killed a senior Ministry of Interior official, Brig. Gen. Salam Salman Mohammed, as he drove to work in Baghdad. Two roadside bombs blew up in the western part of the capital, wounding several people.
