Baghdad bomb kills 66

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide car bombing at a crowded open-air market killed 66 people and wounded 114 others Saturday in the deadliest single attack since the Iraqi government was formed six weeks ago. Other violence brought the day's death toll to more than 100 people.

The market in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City was teeming when the bomber struck, with fruit sellers loudly haggling as shoppers wandered past carts weighed down by vegetables and watermelons.

"Then the huge explosion came," said Raheem Shawaili, 47, a shopkeeper, recounting how everything around him changed in an instant. First, there were "gray plumes of smoke," he said. "Then, the smoke became dark."

The blast blew out windows, ripped doors from their hinges and set ablaze rows of cars. Afterward, small carts used by children to carry goods for shoppers lay wrecked in the dusty street among other debris.

The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki embarked on a trip across the region, visiting Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to garner support for a recent reconciliation initiative intended to bridge the gap between Shiites and Sunnis.

Under the plan, amnesty will be offered to some insurgents, although it is still unclear exactly how it will be implemented. Americans have criticized the plan for being too broad, while Sunni Arabs have faulted it for being too narrow.

Al-Maliki said last week that extending amnesty to violent insurgents was impossible.

"There are demands for general amnesty, but in my opinion this is wrong," he said. "We have people we have detained who have confessed to killing 10, 20, 50, 100 Iraqis and Americans."

The high death toll Saturday could further impede al-Maliki's reconciliation plan.

In Sadr City, the local Shiite political office affiliated with the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr criticized al-Maliki for going ahead with the trip, while enraged residents criticized the government and American troops for failing to prevent the attack.

"With whom does Maliki want us to make reconciliation?" said Mansoor Munim, 26. "With those who are killing us daily?"

Survivors remembered those killed in the bombing: a 12-year-old boy named Aqil and his mother, who had been selling eggs from one of the stalls; Aqil's namesake — an older, trusted taxi driver; Abu Waleed, a father of six; and many others.

"Even the animals were the victims of their brutality," said Hanoon Thamir, 47. "I saw an injured horse bleeding and kicking from the pain of its injuries until it died."

At the morgue next to the Imam Ali Hospital, volunteers helped families find their relatives. Others, including Ali Aboodi, 35, collected body parts. Some of the remains belonged to unidentified children, he said.

Sectarian violence has inexorably escalated, sending this country skittering to the edge of civil war. On one side, bombs wielded by the Sunni Arab-led insurgency have cut a bloody swath through the Shiite majority, killing soldiers and police officers, women and children. On the other, Sunni leaders allege that police officers and special commandos, most of them Shiites, operate death squads that target Sunnis in a campaign of sectarian cleansing.

On Saturday, Sunni legislator Tayseer al-Mashhadani and her four bodyguards were kidnapped on the road from Baqouba to Baghdad. According to her political group, 30 armed men manning a checkpoint stopped her convoy and disarmed and abducted everyone except one guard who managed to escape.

"If abducting members of parliament keeps going on, then there will be no parliament and no country," said Amal Qadhi, another legislator from the Iraqi Accordance Front, the main Sunni group.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad condemned the kidnapping as "repugnant."

"Acts such as the abduction of Ms. Mashhadani have no justification," a statement said. "They aim simply to terrify innocent Iraqis and provoke further conflict."

Two American service members died of non-combat-related injuries in two separate incidents, the U.S. military announced. One was assigned to the Army's 43rd Military Police Brigade. The other was an Air Force member assigned to the 886th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, the Air Force said in a separate statement.

No further details were released.

Despite a much-publicized security crackdown, additional violence claimed the lives of at least 15 other people, and authorities reported the discovery of 26 bodies in three locations Saturday.

In southern Baghdad, police discovered a grave containing 16 people who had been killed recently. Two other bodies were found in the southern Dora neighborhood, and eight additional bodies were discovered on the bank of the Euphrates River near Musayab. Some of victims were soldiers, others civilians, but all showed signs of torture.

Two roadside bombs killed three police officers and injured five people in separate attacks in the New Baghdad neighborhood of eastern Baghdad. Across the river, in western neighborhoods, gunmen in separate attacks killed an engineer, a taxi driver and a 20-year-old as he waited in line for gasoline in Yarmouk. North of the capital, in the restive Diyala province, gunmen fired at three brothers and two children inside a barbershop. The brothers were killed, but the barber and the children survived.

On the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, armed men in a convoy of 10 cars attacked a checkpoint, killing five Iraqi soldiers and abducting three others.

Gunmen also killed Alla Khaled, a traffic cop, at the city's Festival Square. Friends and relatives said Khaled was buried in a suit he had just bought — intended for his wedding the following day.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.