Mourners identify the dead

Baghdad: Grieving relatives retrieved bodies from hospital morgues yesterday and passers-by gawked at the giant crater left by a market bomb in one of four attacks that killed 183 people on the bloodiest day since the US troop increase began nine weeks ago.

Many of the more than 230 Iraqis killed or found dead countrywide a day earlier were buried in quiet ceremonies before yesterday's noon prayer, according to Muslim tradition. Other bodies laid in refrigeration containers, still unidentified, at morgues across Baghdad.

In Sadr City, relatives flocked to Imam Ali Hospital to claim the bodies of loved ones. A man held his shirt over his mouth and nose as he moved past decaying bodies.

Targeting workers

Nearby, four men loaded a casket onto a minibus.

The most devastating blast struck the Sadriyah market as workers were leaving for the day, charring a lineup of minibuses that came to pick them up. At least 127 people were killed and 148 wounded, including men who were rebuilding the market after a February 3 bombing left 137 dead.

Yesterday, collective wakes were being held for multiple victims in huge tents erected in narrow alleys and at nearby mosques within view of the blast site. Onlookers gathered around a crater about three yards wide and one yard deep, left by the force of the explosion.

One of them, 38-year-old Akram Abdullah, who owns a clothing shop about 200 metres away, fell to his knees in tears.

"It's a tragedy - devastation covers the whole area. It's as if a volcano erupted here," said Abdullah, the father of three boys.

"Charred dead bodies are still inside the twisted cars, some cars are still covered with ashes," he said, describing the scene before him in a phone interview.

Abdullah, whose shop was damaged by flying shrapnel, said he took part in 18 funerals yesterday morning. "I cried a lot."

The car bombing appeared meticulously planned. It took place at a pedestrian entrance where tall concrete barriers had been erected after the earlier attack. It was the only way out of the compound, and the construction workers were widely known to leave at about 4pm - the time of the bombing.

One builder, 28-year-old Salih Mustafa, said he was waiting for a bus home when the bomb exploded.

US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell told AP that Al Qaida in Iraq was suspected in the bombing.

Late on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel who was in charge of security in the region around the Sadriyah market.

Suicide bomber kills 10 people

A suicide car bomber killed at least 10 people in Baghdad yesterday.

Police said a bomber rammed his car into a fuel tanker in the religiously-mixed neighbourhood of Jadriya, wounding at least 21 people. Black smoke billowed into the sky as flames engulfed the car and the tanker, television footage showed.