Bombs ripped through markets killing at least 100 people on Monday as Al-Qaeda claimed it shot down an American helicopter and US and Iraqi forces readied an offensive against militias in Baghdad. Another 15 people died in other attacks in Iraq. Two car bombs exploded just after midday at the crowded Haraj market in the heart of Baghdad, killing 88 Iraqis, security officials said. A few hours later, mortar fire and a roadside bomb killed 12 people at a market in the town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad. And late in the day, mortar fire killed six pilgrims as they marched in a procession south of Baghdad to commemorate the Shiite mourning period of Ashura.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda claimed it shot down a US helicopter on Saturday, after a US official said it might have been hit by a shoulder-fired missile.
In Baghdad, the Haraj bombs exploded seconds apart, sending twin columns of thick smoke billowing above the Bab al-Sharki district on the east bank of the Tigris river. It was the worst attack in the capital this year and came less than a week after twin bombs killed 70 people, mostly students, outside a Baghdad university. Hospital and security sources put the casualty toll at 88 dead and 160 wounded in the Haraj market, which is usually filled with traders selling used electronic goods, watches, old clothing and medicines. "There were so many victims they were piled up on wooden market carts, the wounded on top of the dead, and hauled to ambulances and police vehicles," an AFP photographer at the site said. Police prevented him from recording images of the slaughter. "Improvised rescue workers made their way through the carnage amid the cries of those wounded," he added.
At the nearby Al-Kindi hospital, some of the victims' relatives squatted down, holding their heads in grief, while others cried before bodies lined up on the ground and covered with light blue plastic sheets.
But the deadly mayhem did not stop there. The Khalis bomb was placed in a vegetable cart and tore through a crowd of shoppers in the volatile Diyala province, Lieutenant Ahmad Mohammed said. In Suwayra, south of Baghdad, Shiite pilgrims were marching in an Ashura procession when two mortar rounds exploded, killing three women, two men and a baby, a security source said. Six others were wounded.
Ashura, which commemorates the seventh-century slaying of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein in Karbala, has been marred in recent years by Sunni extremist attacks that have killed scores of people.
Elsewhere in Baghdad and Baquba, another nine people died in mortar and gun attacks, and police recovered 27 corpses of men shot to death execution-style, a security official said.