Car bombs tore through a fruit and vegetable market in a Shi'ite area of central Baghdad today, killing 43 people.
The bombing came two days after US President George W Bush met Iraq's prime minister to discuss ways to avert all-out civil war and 10 days after the bloodiest attack since the US invasion killed more than 200 people in the capital.
A witness said two of the explosions occurred while the market was packed with women shopping in the Sadriya neighbourhood near the commercial heart of Baghdad. He said he saw many casualties in the area and thick black smoke rising from the wreckage.
"The first explosion shook the area and a large piece of shrapnel landed near me. I saw people carrying bodies and dazed people running in all directions," said the witness who asked not be named.
Locals raged against Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath and speculated Sunni insurgents may have planted the bombs in retaliation for a raid on a nearby Sunni rebel stronghold on Friday by Iraqi and US troops.
The show of strength came a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraqi forces would be able to take over from US troops by June 2007.
At talks in Jordan, Mr Bush strongly backed him and agreed to speed up training of Iraqi troops so they could take responsibility more quickly.
The White House said Mr Bush would meet one of the most powerful Shi'ite leaders in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, on Monday and the Sunni vice president later this month as he seeks to become more directly involved in calming sectarian tensions.
Mr Bush, under pressure to change course in the unpopular Iraq war after a stinging defeat for his Republicans in Congressional elections, pledged in his weekly radio address today to seek bipartisan consensus on the way forward.