A car bomb killed at least 30 people and wounded 80 today next to a crowded market in a Shia district of Baghdad which has been a repeated target of attacks blamed on Sunni Muslim al Qaeda.
Bystanders used blankets to carry the dead and wounded onto pick-up trucks. The bomb tore off the fronts of shops and destroyed cars. The explosion was at a crowded market in the Bayaa district. Markets are a favourite target of carbombers.
US and Iraqi forces launched a major security crackdown in Baghdad nearly three months ago. The offensive has reduced sectarian death squad killings, but car bombs still plague the city.
North of the capital, two suicide car bombers attacked police positions in Samarra, killing eight people in apparently coordinated attacks in which gunmen also fired mortar bombs, police and army sources said.
Abdullah Jubara, the deputy governor of Salahaddin province, said Abdul Jalil Naji, Samarra's police commander, was killed in one of the attacks, which took place at a police checkpoint at the city's entrance.
Insurgents fighting the Shia-led government and 150,000 US troops in Iraq have switched tactics and stepped up coordinated attacks against Iraqi and US security bases.
Salahaddin province is a Sunni Arab insurgent hotbed. Suspected al Qaeda militants blew up a revered Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006, unleashing a wave of sectarian violence that has killed thousands and driven Iraq to the brink of civil war.
US President George W. Bush is sending 30,000 extra troops to Iraq for the security offensive in Baghdad.