A suicide car bomb exploded near a market in Baghdad today, killing 12 people in the latest in a frenzy of guerrilla attacks that that have killed 400 since a new government promising stability was named two weeks ago.
The blast, which police said also wounded 56 people, followed a series of suicide bomb attacks yesterday that killed at least 71 people.
The death toll from suicide bombings and other attacks has been rising sharply since Iraq announced its first democratically elected cabinet on April 28.
Flames and black smoke rose skywards over mangled market stalls and cars in the mostly Shi'ite Muslim New Baghdad district after the blast. Frantic young men, some crying, pushed wooden carts carrying charred bodies of women and men.
"There are families in the building. Most of them are wounded," an ambulance worker yelled over a mobile telephone.
Sunni insurgents have been stepping up attacks on Shi'ite targets over the last two weeks, raising fears that Iraq could plunge towards sectarian civil war.
The January 30 polls have dramatically changed Iraq's power structure after decades of Sunni Arab rule under toppled leader Saddam Hussein. Once oppressed Shi'ites and Kurds are the new holders of power and Sunni Arabs have been sidelined, holding only 17 seats in the 275-member parliament.
Islamist Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Kurdish leaders are hoping to give Sunnis a prominent role in government in a bid to defuse the Sunni-led insurgency.