Car bomb explosion kills 22 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A car bomb exploded Tuesday on a street packed with shoppers in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 22 people and wounding 28, police said. It was the deadliest bomb attack in the Iraqi capital in a month.

Terrified children screamed and several women wailed for their dead, crying, “the terrorists, may God punish them.” Shattered bits of fruits and vegetables from vendors’ pushcarts lay scattered on the street amid pools of blood.

Today, a large explosion destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq’s most famous Shiite religious shrines in Samarra, the U.S. military said, sending protesters pouring into the streets.

Police believed there were victims buried under the debris of the Askariya Shrine but had no immediate casualty figures. The attack on a major Shiite religious symbol raised fears of an escalation in sectarian violence.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags, Shiite religious flags and copies of the Quran.

“This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife,” said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder who was among the crowd. “We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take up arms and chase the people behind this attack.”

Religious leaders at other mosques and shrines throughout Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, denounced the attack.

At least eight other people were killed and more than 30 injured Tuesday in bombings and shootings elsewhere in Baghdad and in attacks on beauty parlors and liquor stores – symbols of Western influence – in Baqouba, northeast of the capital.

The car bombing occurred shortly before 5 p.m. in a Shiite corner of Dora, a predominantly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad and one of the most dangerous parts of the city – rocked almost daily by bombings, ambushes and assassinations.

Police Maj. Gen. Mahdi al-Gharawi said the bomb was detonated by remote control and an Iraqi suspected of triggering the device had been arrested. Claims of early arrests in bombing cases often prove premature.

At least 969 Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence this year and at least 986 have been wounded, according to an Associated Press count.

However, large-scale attacks against civilians have declined in recent weeks amid widespread public criticism, including from Sunni clerics and others sympathetic to the Sunni-dominated insurgency.