Blasts rock Baghdad shopping area

Baghdad: Two car bombs killed 15 people in a mainly Shiite area of Baghdad yesterday in the latest in a series of attacks by militants on crowded shopping areas in the Iraqi capital.

A weeklong string of bombings has further disrupted life in Baghdad, spreading fear among the city's 7 million residents awaiting a planned US-backed offensive to tighten the government's fragile grip over its largely lawless capital.

Yesterday's attacks struck New Baghdad in the east of the capital, targeting weekend shoppers thronging shops and market stalls selling fruit and exotic birds.

A journalist saw eight bodies being loaded into ambulances and body parts lying in the street in the aftermath of the explosions.

Dead birds lay in cages in an area that appeared to have been reserved for a bird market. Several cars were ablaze. Police said 15 people had been killed and 55 wounded in the quick-fire blasts at a street intersection.

Confusion

One police officer said the blasts were both the work of suicide bombers in cars, while another said there had been one suicide bomb and one parked car had detonated.

In the worst attack this week, 88 people were killed in twin car bomb blasts in the Bab Al Sharji market in central Baghdad, an area home to both Sunni Arab and Shiite traders.

Bombers also struck a Shiite shopping area in central Karrada district on Thursday, killing 26, and on Friday killed 15 people in an attack on the city's famous pet market.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has blamed many of the bombings on Sunni militants and supporters of former president Saddam Hussain, whose botched execution last month angered many fellow members of his minority Sunni sect.

US forces killed 14 insurgents in an air strike early yesterday in an area near Baghdad where Sunni insurgents are battling Iraqi government and US troops.

The US military said the air strike was launched after some militants had tried to escape troops closing in on them.

Despite Al Maliki's announcement earlier this month of a new offensive to regain control of Baghdad's streets from sectarian death squads, violence has continued unabated, with militants defiantly continuing to kill scores of people every week.

Gunmen dressed in police commando uniforms abducted eight people from a central Baghdad computer store yesterday in the latest mass kidnapping to hit the Iraqi capital, police said.

Abducted

Gunmen dragged out employees from the store, situated on a main road, and bundled them into waiting cars. There had been a relative lull in such mass abductions in recent weeks.