After horrific day, Iraqis fear a "huge escalation"

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A series of fiery suicide bombings killed at least 202 people and wounded 252 others Thursday in the biggest attack on Shiite Muslims in Baghdad since the war began in 2003.

Many Iraqis feared this could be the tipping point for an all-out sectarian war.

The explosions in the Sadr City slum followed a highly coordinated militant assault on the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry complex, and were met with almost immediate reprisal attacks in Sunni Arab neighborhoods that killed at least nine others. Separate bombings and shootings killed 18 people in and around the capital, marking one of the bloodiest days in Iraq's sectarian war.

The sound of mortars and gunfire echoed throughout the night in the capital, where an open-ended curfew was put in place. The government closed the airport, and the nation's top clerics and political leaders appealed for calm.

The death toll, released today by Rahim Qassim, a Health Ministry official in Sadr City, and police Col. Hassen Chaloub, was far higher than the one officials had given Thursday night, when they said 161 Iraqis were killed and 257 wounded during the attack with mortar rounds and five car bombs that day.

The intensified violence comes just days before President Bush is to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan to discuss the rapidly deteriorating security situation. The White House said the attacks would not lead to a rescheduling of the meeting.

Starting at about 3 p.m., three suicide bombers blew up their cars at 15-minute intervals, incinerating commuters inside their cars and buses, and shredding market stalls, witnesses and police said.

A couple of inches — and luck — separated life and death on this afternoon.

Saif Murtadha, 17, a falafel seller, was shielded from shrapnel by a car, and escaped unscathed. A man standing near Murtadha's cart was less lucky — he was wounded by shrapnel, Murtadha said.

Wedding photographer Ali Hadid, 30, watched through the lens of his video camera as one of the bombs tore through a crowd of revelers, turning the nuptial celebration into a scene of death. Hadid lost six friends in the bombing, he said.

Witnesses said the first bomb went off near a traffic control point and ignited a fuel truck, setting off a chain reaction as nearby cars erupted in flames.

"I felt it in my body more than in my ears," said Saad Umran, 45, a grocery owner. "Many, many people died. The only thing we could do was cover the dead bodies with blankets."

Fifteen minutes later, he heard the second car bomb explode, less than a mile away. There, standing at a takeout restaurant, Naeem Jassim, 34, watched in horror as the explosion immolated bystanders, turning cars into burning wrecks. "Police and medics were in shock," he said. "They were looking at the dead people. They didn't know what to do or where to start."

At 3:35 p.m., the third explosion killed Shiites who had sought refuge in a temporary housing complex.

After the third bombing, police sealed off entrances to Sadr City, and a fourth car bomb blew up outside its gates. A fifth apparently failed to detonate and was defused by authorities.

Doctors were overwhelmed by the carnage. At a hospital, dozens of injured victims lay on the floors, unattended. As space ran out in the hospital's morgue, workers loaded bodies into refrigerated trucks normally used to transport food.

After the bombings, a couple of bystanders pulled a body from a smoldering bus as angry young men held their handguns and AK-47s high, vowing revenge. Others, standing among smoking car wrecks, cursed American forces and the Iraqi government, saying they failed to provide security. Some had harsh words for the Sunnis.

"They are killing us to secure their chairs," one man yelled, referring to the Sunnis' bid for political power. "May Allah curse the Sunnis and Adnan Dulaimi," another said, referring to a leading Sunni politician.

The conservative Shiite channel, Furat, replayed images of the devastation in a slow-motion loop overlaid with religious music: "Our blood, our blood," a popular singer chanted.

Even Iraqis hardened by the relentless violence feared the scale of Thursday's attacks marked a turning point, much as the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra this year sparked sectarian killing.

"This is a huge escalation and a bad omen," said Jamal Samarra, a Sunni professor of political science at Mustansiriya University. "The situation provokes anxiety and fear. One must be careful, careful, careful."

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the biggest Sunni political party, said that following the Sadr City attacks, 17 mortars hit Sunni neighborhoods, two of them tearing a hole in the dome of Abu Hanifa mosque. It was unclear if anyone had been killed in those attacks. The Associated Press reported mortar barrages in west Baghdad killed nine and wounded 21.

Appearing on national TV after the bombings, al-Maliki said he blamed politicians for provoking civil war. "We condemn these sectarian practices which aim to fragment the unity of the nation," he said.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, appeared on TV with Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashimi and Abdulaziz Hakim, the leader of the largest Shiite bloc in parliament. "We appeal to everybody to show self-

restraint," Hashimi read from a joint statement. Shiite clerics Ali al-Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr, meanwhile, urged followers not to retaliate.

The day's violence began around noon, when mortars pummeled the Health Ministry complex. At least 30 heavily armed militants then surrounded the government building, trapping about 2,000 administrators and officials inside their offices. In a dramatic live interview with an Iraqi TV station, Deputy Health Minister Hakil Zamili charged that Iraqi army soldiers stood by while gunmen attacked.

Eventually, the assailants scattered when U.S. helicopters arrived, a ministry spokesman said.

"We're not provoked by such operations," said Sheik Jaladin Sahir, spokesman for the largest Shiite bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, referring to the attacks.

But, he added: "If the situation continues in this manner, I think the street will explode."

Los Angeles Times reporters Suhail Ahmad, Mohammed Rasheed, Raheem Salman, Saif Rasheed and Julian E. Barnes contributed to this report, which was supplemented with information from

McClatchy Newspapers and The Associated Press.