Death toll rises to 66 in Baghdad market blast

A parked car bomb struck a popular outdoor market today in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad, killing at least 66 people and wounding dozens, authorities said.

It was the bloodiest attack to hit Iraq since the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The blast, which occurred about 10am when the market was packed with shoppers, devastated the stalls where food and clothes are peddled and sent up a plume of grey smoke. Flames shot out the windows of several scorched cars.

Ambulances rushed to the scene and carried the victims to hospitals, where men cradled crying babies as doctors applied bandages to the infants.

Rasoul Zaboun, an official from the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City, said 66 people were killed and 87 wounded.

Police Col. Hassan Jaloob also said 22 shops and stalls were destroyed, along with 14 vehicles.

Angry residents swarmed around the wreckage, with several young men chanting as they rocked the burned out hulk of the car that apparently held the explosives.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. But car bombings and suicide attacks against Shiite civilians have often been blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq, which al-Zarqawi lead until he was killed in a US airstrike June 7.

At least 631 Iraqi civilians and security forces were killed between June 8 and June 30, according to Associated Press figures. They included 25 people killed on Monday in a bicycle bombing in Baqouba.

Also Saturday, gunmen kidnapped a Sunni female member of parliament in a Shiite area of the capital, officials said.

Lawmaker Tayseer Mashhadani was travelling from nearby Diyala province in a three-car convoy to attend a parliament session on Sunday when her party was stopped by gunmen in the east of the city, officials said.

Hamdi Hassoun, an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party branch in Diyala, said Mashhadani was stopped at a checkpoint manned by about 10 armed men in civilian clothes. After checking her identity card, the gunmen asked her and her bodyguards to step out, then forced them into other cars and drove them away, Hassoun said, adding that one bodyguard managed to escape.

Mashhadani is a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is part of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a Sunni bloc that holds 44 seats in the 275-member parliament.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police also found a grave of several men who were apparently shot to death more than a month ago in Baghdad. Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said police had recovered at least six badly decomposed bodies in the grave, located in a Baghdad area notorious for sectarian killings.

The violence came after a relatively calm day in Baghdad amid a four-hour driving ban aimed at preventing suicide bombs during Friday prayers. It underscored the difficulties faced by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki as he tries to curb rampant sectarian and ethnic attacks with strict security measures and a 24-point national reconciliation plan.

Maliki, meanwhile, left for a whirlwind trip to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to seek support for his national reconciliation initiative, which includes an amnesty for the mostly Sunni insurgents.