Stunned Iraqis picked through the rubble of devastated buildings and loaded coffins onto minivans yesterday after a suicide truck bomber obliterated a Baghdad market in a mainly Shi'ite area, killing at least 132 people in the deadliest single strike by a suicide bomber since the war started.

The latest death toll put the number of people who have been killed throughout Iraq in the past week to more than 1,000, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said yesterday.

They have been killed in gunbattles, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks, he said.

The explosion on Saturday evening was the fifth major bombing in less than a month targeting predominantly Shi'ite districts in Baghdad and the southern Shi'ite city of Hillah. It also was the worst in the capital since a series of car bombs and mortars killed at least 215 people in the Shi'ite district of Sadr City on November 23.

Hospital officials said 132 people were killed and 305 were wounded in the thunderous explosion that sent a column of smoke into the sky on the east bank of the Tigris River.
 
Heavily bandaged women, children and men filled hospital beds, while several bloodied bodies were piled onto blankets on the floor of the morgue, which was filled to capacity.

The blast shaved the walls off nearby buildings, sending bricks, desks and other debris spilling onto Kifah Street, where the Sadriyah market was located. Minivans carried wooden coffins as funeral services were held for the victims.

Adnan Lafta, a 51-year-old seller of gas cylinders, said people had recovered two bodies and body parts from under the rubble, while Shi'ite militiamen prevented anyone from entering the emptied buildings.

Police used loudspeakers to ask people to leave the area, fearing another suicide bomber could slip into the crowd.

"It is a tragedy. The terrorists want to punish the Iraqi people. There was no police or American presence in this market yesterday," Lafta said.

The bombing came just days before American and Iraqi forces were expected to start an all-out assault on Sunni and Shi'ite gunmen and bombers in the capital.

Only a day earlier, 16 American intelligence agencies made public a national intelligence estimate that said conditions in Baghdad were perilous.

"Unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress ... in the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate," a declassified synopsis of the report declared.

Meanwhile, the chief US military spokesman said yesterday that all four US helicopters which have crashed in Iraq since January 20 appear to have been brought down by "some kind" of ground fire.

It was the first time that the US command has publicly acknowledged that the three Army and one private helicopters were probably shot down.

Major General William Caldwell told reporters that the investigations into the crashes are incomplete but "it does appear they were all the result of some kind of anti-Iraqi ground fire that did bring those helicopters down."

Suspicion fell on Sunni insurgents - Al-Qaida in Iraq and allied groups in particular.
 
The militant bombers are believed to have stepped up their campaign against Shi'ites in the final days before the joint US-Iraqi crackdown in Baghdad.

Many saw the operation as a last-chance effort to clamp off violence that has turned the capital into a sectarian battleground.

The White House called the bombing an atrocity.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the bombing was "an example of what the forces of evil will do to intimidate the Iraqi people".

(China Daily via agencies February 5, 2007)