AP: 3 blasts in marketplace kill 78

02/12/2007

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_5213943

Baghdad, Iraq - Thunderous car bombs shattered a crowded marketplace in the heart of Baghdad on Monday, triggering secondary explosions, engulfing an eight-story building in flames and killing at least 78 people in the latest in a series of similar attacks aimed at the country's Shiite majority.

The blasts in three parked cars obliterated shops and stalls and left bodies scattered among mannequins and other debris in pools of blood.

Small fires, fueled by clothing and other goods, burned for hours in the rubble-strewn street as firefighters battled blazes in two buildings.

The attack appeared timed to coincide with the first anniversary - on the Muslim lunar calendar - of the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra near Baghdad, an al-Qaeda provocation that unleashed the torrent of sectarian bloodletting that has gripped the capital for months.

The second major bombing in 3 days

buscho has created a new level of national horror.