IRAQ: A car bomb ripped through a busy market outside a Baghdad police headquarters yesterday, killing 47 people, and wounding 110, most of them policemen, as the rebel insurgency penetrated the Iraqi capital writes James Drummond in Baghdad.
In a second attack in Baquba, north of the capital, 12 more Iraqi policemen were killed when gunmen opened fire on the bus in which they were travelling. Followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant, claimed credit for both incidents.
Since the weekend, the insurgency, until now focused outside Baghdad, has moved into the centre of the city and closer to the Green Zone, the seat of Iraq's government and the site of the US and British embassies.
Foreign security experts have voiced fears that the Green Zone is increasingly vulnerable to attack or infiltration.
The violence flared this week as senior US military officers started to question the decision to leave many cities in the hands of guerrilla groups while Iraqi security forces are being trained.
The US-appointed transitional government of Mr Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, and his frail security forces have been under pressure since last month.
"Whenever he [Mr Allawi] is seen on TV, talking about security, we can expect some explosions the day after," Farhan Mohammed, a 28-year-old police lieutenant in Baghdad, said after the bombing.
Yesterday, interim President Ghazi al-Yawar held out the possibility that elections planned for January would be delayed if the United Nations determined that the level of violence in the country made them impossible.
"It is a challenge to have the elections on time," Mr Yawar admitted. But he said: "Unless the UN says it is impossible to hold it, we are going to hold it at that time."
His remarks appeared to be the first time a senior Iraqi official had publicly discussed the possibility of delaying the elections. Mr Allawi did not entertain the notion of a delay during a briefing for journalists at the weekend.
Mr Allawi and his US backers have responded to the violence with a campaign targeting insurgent strongholds such as Falluja and Ramadi west of the capital and Tel Afar in the north of the country.
Up to 10 Iraqis were killed yesterday in clashes with US forces in Ramadi, according to Reuters, and the US military said it was continuing operations in Tel Afar.Between 2,000 and 3,000 people had been displaced in Tel Afar, a mainly Shia town populated by Turkish speaking Turcomans, the military said.
The west side of Baghdad is closer to known trouble spots and more vulnerable to infiltration by Sunni insurgents. The road west passes through Abu Ghraib, a suburb of Baghdad, and on to Falluja and Ramadi - all centres of anti-US and anti-government activity.
In the streets around the scene of yesterday's bombing the attack only served to deepen anti-US sentiment as attack helicopters swooped over the site of the bombing. Many Iraqis believe the US is behind the bombings.
"America is the one who targets the Iraqi citizen, that targets the policemen, to destabilise the country," said a furious Hazem Khalaf at Karkh hospital where the injured and dying were taken. Mr Khalaf's student son died in yesterday's bombing.
Witnesses at the scene of the bombing said the dead and injured included many who had gathered that morning to apply for jobs in the police force.
A purported statement by an Iraqi group claiming to hold two French hostages said yesterday it concluded that France was an enemy of Muslims, but did not say what it would do with the two men. The statement, posted on a website in the name of Islamic Army in Iraq and dated Tuesday, listed what it said were France's crimes against Muslims and Arab countries.
"Considering all this, is France a friend of Muslims? Finally, the Islamic Army in Iraq calls on the Islamic nation to unite against its enemies and put its faith in God," it ended, without saying what the fate of the hostages would be.
'I have never seen so many bodies before'
An old woman hosed down the floor of a Baghdad hospital yesterday, trying in vain to wash away pools of blood.
"The blood is not stopping," said the woman, who gave her name only as Amina. "This is the third time I have washed the floor. It's like a river in flood. The whole hospital is bleeding." Doctors, their white tunics covered in blood, picked their way through the wounded - some missing legs, others arms - laid out on stretchers in the corridors of Karkh hospital.
A huge car bomb had ripped through a busy Baghdad market, scattering body parts across the street, uprooting trees and saturating the air with smoke and the stench of burning flesh.
"I saw a black blast and then bodies scattered around me," said Omar Salem, a 12-year-old boy, riding his bicycle calmly through the maze of charred and bloodied corpses.
"I have never seen so many bodies before," he said, without emotion.
Witnesses said hundreds of people had been quietly going about their business in the rebel stronghold of Haifa Street when a car bomb went off. Some were working, some were shopping, others were waiting to join Iraq's new police force at the nearby district headquarters.
The blast set nine cars ablaze.
Inside the hospital, the morgue quickly filled up with bodies. Corpses were piled up in a ward before they could be moved elsewhere.
Outside the hospital, a distraught woman begged guards to let her in to check if her husband was among the dead.
"Please, I beg you, let me in. I know he is here. They told me he is dead, but I want to see him," she cried. "Why did it happen? He is just a poor man. He has six children."