Sadr suicide blasts kill 145

In the deadliest attack since the beginning of the Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used three suicide car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital’s Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 145 people and wound 238 today, according to police.

The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya, killing one person and wounding seven people in their attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad.

Beginning at 3.10pm local time, the three car bomb attackers blew up their vehicles one after another, at 15 minute intervals, hitting Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square in Sadr City.

At about the same time, mortar rounds struck al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, police said.

As the explosions sent up huge plumes of black smoke up over north-eastern Baghdad, and left streets covered with burning bodies and blood, angry residents and armed Shiite militiamen flooded the streets, hurling curses at Sunni Muslims and firing weapons into the air.

Sadr City is home to the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.