At Least 125 Killed in Blast at Baghdad Market

"The hospitals are equipped to handle this number of casualties because they get used to it," Health Minister Ali Hussein al-Shamari said on the state-run station.

Ali Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister, said authorities suspect that a Sunni insurgent group sponsored the attack. Most recent large bombs in Iraq have been detonated during the morning hours, but the two large bombings this week -- two suicide bombers killed dozens of shoppers at a bazaar in the southern city of Hilla on Thursday -- came in the evening.

"They're trying to change their strategy," Dabbagh said. "They change in order to show that they have the upper hand."

Dabbagh said the pickup truck used in Saturday's attack did not have a license plate, making it difficult to trace it to the bomber's accomplices.

Dabbagh blamed Syria for not doing enough to stop the violence, saying that 50 percent of insurgents enter Iraq through Syria.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attributed the attack to "forces of evil and terrorism" driven by "Saddamists and Baathists" who have "cheapened the blood of innocent civilians."

The market has been struck at least twice before, last month and in December.

Shoppers frequent the market to buy meat, poultry, vegetables and household goods. Vendors work out of small stores and wooden carts. The market is generally packed on Friday and Saturday afternoons, when many Iraqis do not work.

The White House condemned the attack, saying in a statement issued last night: "Another atrocity in Baghdad today has targeted the innocent people of Iraq. Free nations of the world must not stand by while terrorists commit mass murder in an attempt to derail democratic progress in Iraq and throughout the greater Middle East."

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in a statement, "To those who commit these heinous crimes, we send this message: You will be relentlessly hunted until you are apprehended and brought to justice. Have no doubt; you will pay for your role in these crimes."

Earlier in the day, seven car bombs detonated in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least two people and wounding nearly 30. One of the bombs exploded in front of the Kurdish Democratic Party building in the ethnically mixed city.

The city's police chief decried the recent loss of an Iraqi military brigade based in Kirkuk -- one of the units the government has sent to Baghdad as part of the capital's security plan.

Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of four soldiers Friday. Two were killed in Anbar province in western Iraq. The other two were killed in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad. Their names will be released after relatives have been notified, the statement said.

Special correspondents Naseer Mehdawi, Naseer Nouri and Waleed Saffar contributed to this report.