Bombs ripped through several mainly Shiite districts in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 158 people and wounding scores more, police said, in the worst wave of carnage since President Bush announced three months ago that he would deploy additional troops to pacify the Iraqi capital.In the gravest attack, a car bomb killed at least 118 people across from the busy Sadriya market, a shopping area that the U.S. military closed to traffic and fortified with blast walls after a truck bomb killed 135 people at the market in February, in the single deadliest explosion since the war began in 2003.
The attacks followed brazen bombings that demonstrated the insurgents' ability to circumvent the U.S. and Iraqi security plan for Baghdad, and renewed fears of reprisal killings by Shiites. Last Thursday, a truck bomb collapsed a popular bridge over the Tigris River and a suicide bomber penetrated the fortresslike Green Zone, blowing himself up inside the parliament cafeteria, killing one lawmaker.
"After two months of the security plan in the hot areas of the city, the attacks have moved to the cold, quiet areas to make them hot, while the hot areas burn," said Nasar al-Rubaie, a lawmaker who heads the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "These target everything that has life in Iraq: universities, schools, neighborhood centers, markets, gas stations and bus stations. But the occupation forces and the government stand still, doing nothing, and let the terrorists play."
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