A powerful car bomb exploded in a crowded market area of Baghdad today, killing 51 people and wounding 75, in the biggest attack in the Iraqi capital in months.
The bomb blew up near the main market in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of al-Hurriya in northwestern Baghdad, police said.
Before the blast, the market would have been packed with late-afternoon shoppers buying food before returning home.
Police said 51 people were killed and 75 were wounded, including women and children.
The blast set fire to about 20 shops and levelled a multi-storey building, a security source said. Many vehicles were damaged by the blast, which cut off electricity to the area.
Earlier, the US military said it killed four al Qaeda militants in a raid in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, but Iraqi police said the three brothers and their father shot in the operation were not insurgents.
Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has sent the Iraqi army, with US support, into Shia militia strongholds in Baghdad and the southern oil city of Basra and launched a campaign against al Qaeda in Mosul.
In the latest phase of his drive to extend government control over areas controlled by Shia militias, Maliki has ordered army and police reinforcements to the southern city of Amara in preparation for a crackdown.
Reuters