[Mail and Globe] The death toll from twin car bomb blasts in a crowded Baghdad market rose to 51 on Thursday, police said, and the country's main Sunni political party condemned the attack on a heavily Shi'ite Muslim area. The car bombs on Wednesday, which also wounded 76 people in the capital's sprawling Sadr City slum, followed a series of other attacks in the past two weeks that have stirred fears of a return to broader sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.
A third car bomb was found in a parked taxi cab and detonated by security forces.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the main political party in Parliament representing the country's once dominant Sunni minority, denounced the attack as a blatant attempt to trigger renewed fighting between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
"The bloody hands want Iraqis to feel fear," the party said in a statement.
"These explosions in Sadr City are part of a big conspiracy by Iraq's enemies. We call on all political groups and the Iraqi government, and especially the security forces, to quell this sedition."
The upsurge in violence this month has ended the sense of growing calm and security that had gripped Baghdad earlier this year.
While the violence remains below the levels of last year, the attacks coincide with plans for United States combat troops to pull out of Iraqi cities in June, ahead of a full withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011.