88 Iraqis killed in blasts

BAGHDAD — Insurgents set off a pair of car bombs in a crowded Baghdad market Monday, killing at least 88 Iraqis in what may be a warning sign that Sunni Arab militants will challenge the proposed U.S. playbook for calming the country’s sectarian violence.

The explosions left gruesome scenes of chaos in the capital’s Tayaran Square, often a frenzied crossroad of commerce and traffic. The wounded dragged themselves into taxis past mangled vendor carts, blackened debris and piles of soot.

Dazed survivors prodded bodies for signs of life and bandaged wounds with secondhand clothes from the market’s thrift stores. The smell of burned flesh hung in the air for hours.

At least 168 Iraqis were wounded in the attack, which had sectarian overtones and was similar to blasts carried out by Sunni insurgents, particularly those with ties to foreign extremist groups. The majority of businesspeople and workers in Baghdad’s downtown marketplaces are Shiite Muslims.

Analysts said the increase in Sunni violence had exposed a weakness in the U.S.-Iraqi effort to stabilize the capital. The Bush administration, which is boosting the number of troops in Iraq by 21,500, has promised to pacify Shiite militias thought to be targeting Sunnis. But Sunni attacks on Shiites have continued unabated, threatening to strengthen the Shiite population’s support of its militias and jeopardizing efforts for talks between the two sects.

President Bush is expected to outline and promote his plan for securing Baghdad in his State of the Union address tonight.

Victims of the bombings cursed the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki as they hauled away bodies and debris.

“Where is Maliki now?” cried one man, whose brother died in the blasts. “We are being killed and they are sitting on their fancy chairs.”

One more car bomb was detonated near fruit and vegetable stalls in the mostly Shiite town of Khalis, 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 12 Iraqis and injuring 40.

Authorities discovered the bodies of 29 men, apparent victims of Shiite death squads, scattered across Baghdad.

At least one U.S. soldier was killed and four wounded in a roadside bombing in Nineveh province, which is predominantly Sunni.

At least 30 American troops have died since Friday in apparent Sunni attacks, including a well-coordinated assault in Karbala on Saturday in which uniformed men stormed a security compound and killed five troops.

Frederick W. Kagan, a military analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the attacks on U.S. forces could be a reaction to new American operations in Baghdad or a retaliation for a recent battle on the capital’s Haifa Street, where U.S. forces killed Sunni insurgents.

But he said militants also could be launching an all-out effort to discourage the U.S. from sending more troops.

“Some insurgent groups could be trying to mass against us to inflict casualties as a way of turning the surge off,” he said.

Monday’s bombings occurred about a mile across the Tigris River from the U.S.-protected Green Zone. As pedestrians and shopkeepers rushed to aid the victims of the first explosion, another powerful blast shook the ground.

“I saw scores of injured people covered with blood being evacuated, and smoke and fire at two locations,” said Raed abu Ahmad, a businessman who was shopping for a cellphone. “I saw bodies covered with blankets and burning cars.”

Sirens erupted throughout the capital as ambulances raced to and from the bombing sites. Jittery police at the square screamed at passersby and fired into the air, attempting to clear the area of pedestrians.

A group of police officers briefly detained a pair of Los Angeles Times reporters, seizing their cellphones, identification cards and a tape recorder for several minutes before returning them.

Soldiers attached to the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division arrived soon after the blasts, the military said. The area was sealed off as dump trucks hauled away debris.

The bombings flooded five hospitals with the dead and wounded.

“Most of the victims were burned and injured to the head and upper body,” said Imad Abdul-Hadi, a medical assistant at a neurology hospital that took in more than 65 bombing victims. “Our hospital is suffering, as we are working at full capacity in a most abnormal way.”

Witnesses were baffled by the attack’s target, which appeared to be a group of stalls selling cigarettes and produce. Some said the first blast was caused by a suicide bomber driving a beat-up Volkswagen into a cafe.

The owners, vendors and laborers in the market tend to be Shiites, a result of longtime Sunni domination of government and civil service jobs that forced Shiites, Jews and Kurds to turn to the private sector for employment, especially in Baghdad.

“There weren’t any Americans or Iraqi security forces,” one witness said. “I don’t know why they would target these people.”

By early afternoon, several shopkeepers had reopened in an attempt to salvage some of the day’s lost business and help pay for repairs after the blasts, which shattered windows and sent shrapnel hurtling through doors.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” said an employee of an appliance repair shop. “They’re targeting innocent people. We could understand if they were targeting American or even Iraqi forces. Those are their ultimate enemies. But doing it this way is meaningless.”

Gunmen killed a Sunni tribal leader in west Baghdad and a police academy trainer in east Baghdad. Mortar rounds struck a Shiite enclave in south Baghdad and a Sunni section of west Baghdad, killing four people and injuring 11.

Northeast of the capital, gunmen kidnapped Khalid Fenjari, the mayor of the provincial capital of Baqubah, which in recent weeks has been riven by sectarian warfare. The gunmen blew up the mayor’s headquarters.

An investigation continued on the weekend crash of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, which killed 12 troops.

Fragments found at the crash site northeast of Baghdad have led investigators to think the helicopter may have been shot down by militants, said a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Associated Press said investigators had found a tube that might be part of a shoulder-fired weapon. U.S. officials were not able to confirm the report.

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Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes in Washington and Said Rifai, Saif Rasheed and Suhail Ahmad in Baghdad, and special correspondents in Baghdad and Baqubah contributed to this report.