Weekend blasts in Baghdad kill at least 152

AT least 15 people have died in bombings that rocked Baghdad, a day after a massive market blast killed 137 people in the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Four policemen were among the dead in yesterday’s blasts, security sources said. The attacks, which follow a week of bombings in mainly Shi’ite areas, came ahead of a massive security operation by a combined US-Iraqi force aimed at stabilising the city.

Security sources said Saturday’s blast, which also wounded more than 300 people, was caused by a suicide bomber who blew up his truck in Sadiriya market in a mainly Shi’ite district of central Baghdad.

Embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the attack on Sunni Arab followers of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The devastation caused by the bomb was apparent yesterday, the long, narrow street where the Sadiriya market is situated covered with the debris and rubble of dozens of gutted shops.

The blast was the worst attack since coordinated car bombings in the Shi’ite district of Sadr City on November 23 killed at least 202 people.

Iraqi soldiers sealed off the blast site as Sadiriya residents voiced fury at the government and its ally the United States.

‘‘Why they are targeting this place again and again? Just because we are Shi’ites,’’ one resident who saw the bombing said.

Sadiriya, a Shi’ite stronghold, was an obvious target for Sunni insurgents.

Posters of leading Shi’ite politicians Moqtada al-Sadr and Abdel Aziz al-Hakim dot the market street alongside banners quoting Imam Ali, one of the early leaders of the Shi’ite faith.

Insurgents exploded more bombs in the bloodied capital yesterday, killing another 15 people just days after a US intelligence report described parts of the Iraq conflict as a civil war.

In one attack, a car bomb killed four people and wounded seven.

Mr al-Maliki expressed outrage at Saturday’s market bombing.

‘‘The Iraqi people and the world is shocked by this crime which struck the popular market in Sadiriya and resulted in massive casualties,’’ he said.

The intensifying bombing campaign poses a major challenge to Iraqi and US authorities as they fine-tune a make-or-break security plan to stabilise Baghdad by putting around 80,000 troops on the streets.

Meanwhile, the US military is adjusting its tactics in Iraq after four helicopters were shot down over the past two weeks, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said yesterday.

Maj Gen Caldwell said the helicopters had been shot down in four separate incidents in which 21 US servicemen and private security contractors were killed, confirming leaks from within the US military.

Dozens of US helicopters have come down, some of them hit by missiles or gunfire, in four years of fighting. But the unusually high number of helicopters lost in such a short time had raised questions about whether militants had changed tactics or were using more sophisticated weapons.

‘‘There has been an ongoing effort to target our helicopters,’’ Maj Gen Caldwell told reporters in Baghdad ‘‘We have had four helicopters shot down.”

He said the incidents were still under investigation, but in the meantime US helicopters were changing the way they flew in support of Iraqi and American troops.