Shopping-district attack kills 31 Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A multi-pronged attack on one of the city's most well-heeled quarters Thursday killed at least 31 Iraqi civilians and left behind scores of wounded, most of them moderate, middle-class Shiite Muslims shopping in one of the capital's only vibrant commercial districts.

At least five blasts struck the Karradah area of central Baghdad, including a devastating car bomb that set shops ablaze and incinerated passers-by along a crowded strip of butcher shops. Iraqi police, holding AK-47s and handguns and firing into the air, quickly sealed off the area, which is surrounded by numerous layers of checkpoints.

Survivors begged police to help friends and loved ones trapped in an inferno.

"I headed back to my shop to see it blazing with fire and my friends and neighbors killed or wounded," said Zuhair Ali Hussein Zaidi, 30, a hardware store owner who left his shop to investigate one blast only to return and find his shop destroyed.

The explosions turned several buildings into mangled heaps of twisted steel girders, rubble and dust. Bloodied residents scrambled around the close-knit neighborhood looking for missing loved ones, including a girl, 11, on a shopping errand who remained missing. Six of the dead were discovered beneath rubble eight hours after the blast.

The 10 a.m. attack bore the signature of Sunni Arab insurgents. Police said four of the five blasts were caused by rockets or mortars. But officials often have attributed such explosions to indirect fire, hoping to stave off blame for allowing insurgents to maneuver explosives-packed vehicles past checkpoints that dot the city.

Overlapping layers of insurgent, sectarian, ethnic, tribal and criminal violence have overwhelmed Iraqi civilians, many of whom stay clustered in their homes and immediate neighborhoods out of fear for their lives.

Military commanders in Iraq are developing a plan to move as many as 5,000 U.S. troops with armored vehicles and tanks into Baghdad in an effort to quell escalating violence, defense officials said Thursday.

As part of the plan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld extended the tours of 3,500 members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The unit, which has been serving in northern Iraq, was scheduled to be leaving now, but instead, most of its troops will serve for up to four more months. It was unclear whether the unit would go to Baghdad.

Violence has escalated in Iraq this year despite numerous plans to improve security, the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the formation of a permanent government.

At least 19 bodies of men, shot in the head and bearing signs of torture, were discovered in various parts of Baghdad on Thursday.

Armed men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms and driving Iraqi army vehicles swiped $1.35 million in Iraqi currency Thursday from vehicles carrying cash from the central bank to a private bank in west Baghdad, police said.

Gunmen also killed three men working for a foreign security company in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, also the site of clashes between suspected insurgents and police. In addition, five traffic police officers were reported kidnapped in east Baghdad.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.