Bombs kill 40 people at Iraq market

BAGHDAD – Bombs killed more than 40 people in Iraq yesterday morning, including 24 at a market in Baghdad, where insurgents defied a US-backed security clampdown in its fourth week.

A further 35 people were wounded in the attack on the Shorja wholesale market in central Baghdad, police said. Attacks in recent days have shattered a relative calm this past month.A bomb in the nearby Karrada district killed two people and wounded 21 around the same time.Another went off near a busy fuel station, drawing a police unit in response.Five officers were then wounded in a second explosion, when a car detonated.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 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 Shi’ite 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.The mainly Shi’ite city of Hilla, close to the site of ancient Babylon, is surrounded by Sunni rural areas.It has seen some of the deadliest sectarian bomb attacks over the past two years, including the bloodiest single blast in Iraq, when 125 people, many of them police recruits, were killed by a suicide car bomber in February 2005.Despite the danger, young men continue to queue up at police and army recruitment centres, desperate for employment.A large group of men responding to a newspaper advert for army recruits rioted outside the governor’s office in Samawa, 270 km south of Baghdad, after being told to come back at the weekend, a witness said.The witness said the police initially fired warning shots and then shot into the crowd after they began throwing rocks at the building, killing one man and wounding five.Three policemen were injured in the riot.Nampa / ReutersAttacks in recent days have shattered a relative calm this past month.A bomb in the nearby Karrada district killed two people and wounded 21 around the same time.Another went off near a busy fuel station, drawing a police unit in response.Five officers were then wounded in a second explosion, when a car detonated.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 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 Shi’ite 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.The mainly Shi’ite city of Hilla, close to the site of ancient Babylon, is surrounded by Sunni rural areas.It has seen some of the deadliest sectarian bomb attacks over the past two years, including the bloodiest single blast in Iraq, when 125 people, many of them police recruits, were killed by a suicide car bomber in February 2005.Despite the danger, young men continue to queue up at police and army recruitment centres, desperate for employment.A large group of men responding to a newspaper advert for army recruits rioted outside the governor’s office in Samawa, 270 km south of Baghdad, after being told to come back at the weekend, a witness said.The witness said the police initially fired warning shots and then shot into the crowd after they began throwing rocks at the building, killing one man and wounding five.Three policemen were injured in the riot.Nampa / Reuters