A savage string of apparently coordinated bombings erupted Thursday in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of Baghdad, killing 138 people.
Police called it the deadliest single strike in Iraq since the war began more than three years ago.
Bombs and mortar shells struck Sadr City at 15-minute intervals, beginning about 3 p.m., according to The Associated Press, with the first bombing hitting a vegetable market. (Watch flames, chaos in Sadr City Video)
Shiites responded almost immediately, the AP reported, firing 10 mortar rounds at the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya. The attack killed one person and wounded 14 others, the AP said.
Leaders from Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities issued a televised appeal for calm, according to the AP.
Witnesses told CNN that people on loudspeakers at Shiite mosques in urged residents to donate blood for the wounded in Sadr City.
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