Bombs target Baghdad shoppers

Three people were killed and 14 injured when two bombs ripped through crowds of shoppers in Baghdad’s Shurja wholesale market.

The market was full of shoppers stocking up on sweets and other delicacies for Eid.

The bombs were timed to cause maximum damage with initial explosions designed to draw onlookers and rescuers with a secondary attack timed to cause additional carnage.

The first blast was caused by a car bomb and the second by a roadside bomb.

In another incident, at least five people were killed and 22 injured when a man blew himself up in a market in Palestine street in eastern Baghdad, Iraqi security sources said.

US bombing

Another bomb hidden beneath a car killed two people and injured 10 others lined up outside the al-Farasha pastry and sweet shop in Baghdad’s eastern New Baghdad neighbourhood at 11.45am (0845 GMT), police captain Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said.

Two people were injured when a mortar round crashed into a nearby restaurant five minutes later.

Five Iraqis, including two children, from one family were killed when US forces bombed their house in the city of Anbar, Iraqi medics said.

The bombing came after two Iraqis were killed and two injured in clashes between gunmen and US forces.

Death toll

Mohammed Khayun, a police spokesman, said that the death toll from Saturday’s bomb and mortar attack on a market in Mahmudiya, just south of the capital, rose to 19 on Sunday with scores injured.

So far this month, an average of 43 Iraqis have been killed each day, according to an Associated Press count. That compares to an average death toll of about 27 since April 2005. The count includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces.

But the actual number is probably much higher as many killings go unreported. The UN estimates that about 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day.

October is on course to be the deadliest month for American troops in two years with 80 killed so far.