Iraqi officials say a car bomb has killed 51 people and wounded 75 others at a
market in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.
Tuesday's bombing in (the
Hurriyah district of) western Baghdad was the deadliest in the Iraqi capital
in more than three months.
The car bomb triggered a fire that engulfed a
multi-story building containing shops and apartments. Many of the victims were
trapped in that building. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the
bombing in the strongest terms, calling it a heinous terrorist
attack.
Baghdad had been relatively calm since May 11th, when U.S. and
Iraqi forces began observing a truce with Shi'ite militants that ended weeks of
fighting.
In another attack Tuesday, an Iraqi television news reporter
(Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid) was shot dead near his home in the northern city
of Mosul.
Also, Iraq's parliament says it will
start holding its sessions outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad,
starting September first. The planned move is in response to what U.S. and Iraqi
officials say are general improvements in security.
Deputy speaker Khalid
al-Attiyah says the parliament will return to the National Assembly building,
where lawmakers met during Saddam Hussein's rule.
Elsewhere, Iraqi
officials say insurgents in the southern province of Maysan have handed over
large numbers of weapons ahead of a crackdown by Iraqi security
forces.
Iraq's government has ordered insurgents in Maysan to surrender
their weapons by Thursday, when Iraqi forces are expected to start operations to
demilitarize the province.
In other developments, the U.S. military says
it killed four al-Qaida militants Tuesday in a raid on a suspected bombing cell
in Mosul.
Also Tuesday, a car bomb exploded outside a police headquarters
in the town of Baquba (northeast of Baghdad), killing one officer and
wounding 19 other people.