Market Bombing Kills 21 in Southern Baghdad

A minibus packed with explosives detonated near a busy market Tuesday evening, killing at least 21 Iraqis and wounding 29 in the most lethal attack in the capital in more than two months.

The explosion targeted a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the religiously mixed Dora district, which is widely seen as among Baghdad’s most dangerous areas. Coming on the heels of a suicide bombing Monday in the Shiite district of Kadhimiya, it marked an end to a period of relative calm that had followed a series of lethal suicide bombings in early January.

Recent patterns of violence suggest some insurgent attacks coincide with ups and downs in the political process. The latest upsurge comes during a deadlock in talks among Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties aimed at forming a new government in the wake of the Dec. 15 elections.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and President Jalal Talabani to encourage Iraqi officials to build an inclusive government, in part to calm Sunni anger believed to be fueling the insurgency.

“What the Iraqis want is a real government of national unity binding together all the different elements of Iraqi society,” Straw said at a news conference with Talabani. “Obviously the countries that participated in liberating Iraq have an interest in a prosperous and democratic Iraq.”

The bombing occurred about 5 p.m. and shook the city’s southern edge. It was not clear whether the blast was set off by remote control or by a suicide bomber. A witness said the attacker may have been targeting a passing police convoy transporting prisoners to a nearby station.

The police officers escaped unhurt. However, the explosion killed and wounded civilians around the Abu Toushir market, a bustling square where vendors sell groceries and appliances and shoppers dine at small restaurants. Many of the victims were women and children.

Police and witnesses said nearby shops were crushed. Police officers and U.S. soldiers cordoned off the area.

Sarab Saad, 20, who was taken to Yarmuk Hospital with shrapnel wounds to her lower body, said she was shopping with her father and 4-year-old brother when the explosion occurred. Her father was killed, and her brother was rushed to the neurological hospital with brain injuries, a hospital official said.

“All of a sudden there was an explosion with red fireballs,” Saad said from her hospital bed. “I don’t know what happened next.”

The explosion came at a time of day when it would cause maximum bloodshed, as laborers and office workers were rushing to buy groceries before heading home.

“This is another brutal attack against innocent civilians committed by these terrorists,” said Col. Hossein Taii of the Iraqi police. “We are out here to finish them one by one.”

The car bombing punctuated a day of violence and explosions throughout the capital.

A roadside bomb made from an artillery shell encased in concrete and attached to a washing machine timer killed two Iraqi police commandos and injured four others in a police convoy in southeast Baghdad, the police and U.S. military said.

A Katyusha rocket landed on the outskirts of the Sadr City district, injuring six, police said. A roadside bomb apparently intended for a convoy of sport-utility vehicles along Rasheed Street in the capital’s downtown area killed a civilian.

Another roadside bomb in the path of the convoy of the minister of immigration injured three of his bodyguards.

A roadside bomb in the Jamiya district killed one police officer, and another that went off in the vicinity of a U.S. Army patrol injured two Iraqis.

The blindfolded corpse of a man who was the apparent victim of an execution-style slaying was discovered earlier in the day in Dora, the area where the market bombing took place. A note attached to the body read, “This is the destiny of the terrorists who kill innocent people.”

Outside the capital, gunmen in the northern city of Kirkuk attacked an Iraqi army patrol, killing two soldiers and wounding a civilian, Iraqi Police Brig. Yadgar Mohammed said.

An assassination attempt on a judge in Baqubah, about 40 miles northeast of the capital, killed a passenger in his car. Several hairdressers’ shops, often targeted by Islamic extremists as symbols of apostasy and decadence, were bombed in Baqubah, a provincial capital believed to be a stronghold of loyalists of Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi.

U.S. forces in western Iraq have discovered one of the largest weapons caches to date, the military said in a statement released Tuesday.

The cache, discovered Monday, included 3,000 pieces of munitions, including mortar shells and rockets often used in assembling roadside bombs.

Special correspondents in Baghdad, Baqubah and Kirkuk contributed to this report.