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A resident cries near a damaged vehicle at the site of a suicide bomb attack - Source: Reuters -
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A bomb killed at least 72 people at a busy market in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City slum, police said, six days before US combat troops are due to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities.
About 127 people were wounded by the blast in the poor, mostly
Shi'ite Muslim area. A witness said the explosion tore through a
part of the Mraidi Market where birds are sold, setting stalls
ablaze.
Bloodshed has dropped sharply across Iraq in the past year, but
militants including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda continue to launch car
and suicide bombings aimed at undermining the government and
reigniting sectarian conflict.
Wednesday's market bombing came four days after the US military formally handed control to local forces in Sadr City, where US and Iraqi forces fought fierce battles against Shi'ite militiamen in the spring of 2008.
Raad Latif, who owns a shop near the blast site, said the bomb appeared to have been on a trailer attached to a motorcycle.
"The blast was very big and loud. After we heard it, we closed our shops and rushed to help the injured," Latif said. Initially the security forces kept residents back to allow ambulances and police vehicles into the area, he said.
"After a while they came to their senses and allowed us to help as much as we could ... the scene was horrific," he said.
The office of the Baghdad security spokesman said 62 people had died and 150 were wounded in the explosion.
Three school students died in another bombing in Sadr City on Monday, one of a string of blasts that killed 27 people across Iraq that day. On Saturday, at least 73 people died in a suicide truck bombing outside a mosque in Kirkuk province.
High death tolls remain common despite the fall in overall violence. Two female suicide bombers killed 60 people outside a Shi'ite shrine in the capital this April, just days before twin car bomb blasts killed 51 people in Sadr City.
June 30 deadline approaches
Such attacks cast doubt on the ability of local security forces, rebuilt from the ground up after they were dissolved by US officials in 2003, to vanquish a stubborn insurgency on their own.
"This cowardly act will not shake the determination of our people and armed forces to take over security responsibility and defeat terrorist schemes," Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a minority Kurd, said in a statement following the attack.
Sadr City is a bastion of support for fiery anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. The Mehdi Army has frozen most activities in the past year and Iraqi government forces have retaken control of the area.
Analysts say attacks are likely to intensify ahead of a parliamentary election in January that will be a crucial test of whether Iraq's feuding factions can live together after years of sectarian slaughter unleashed by the 2003 US invasion.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has built a reputation on
reducing the bloodshed and has lauded this month's partial
withdrawal of US troops. Maliki, a member of Iraq's Shi'ite
majority, has urged Iraqis not to lose heart if insurgents take
advantage of the US military drawdown to step up attacks.
Maliki has called the urban withdrawal of combat troops, a
milestone in the plan to withdrawal all US troops by 2012, a great
victory for Iraq. The cabinet has declared next Tuesday will be a
national holiday to mark the occasion.
Earlier on Wednesday, a US military spokesman said only a small number of US troops would be left in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for combat forces to leave urban areas, but that the exact number was still being worked on.
Some US soldiers will stay behind in urban centres at so-called Joint Security Stations to train and advise local security forces. The US military will also continue to provide intelligence and air support, and be on call if needed.
Brigadier General Steve Lanza told reporters the US military
acknowledged the pullback of its forces would pose challenges for
Iraq, but there had been only 10 high-profile attacks in June,
compared to 16 in May and 28 in April.
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