Bombings End Lull In Iraqi Capital

U.S. soldiers stationed at a nearby police station rushed to the sites, where buildings and vehicles were ablaze.

With ambulances in short supply, vegetable vendors emptied their carts, dumping lettuce heads and tomatoes on the ground.

"They loaded their wooden carts with wounded and dead bodies," Hadi said. Trails of blood showed the routes vendors had taken. "There were dozens of those red tracks," he said.

Another image stuck in Hadi's mind: that of a weeping man in gray trousers and a white, blood-stained T-shirt collecting body parts in a plastic bag, apparently oblivious to the policemen asking civilians to leave the area.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the attack, saying in a statement that "terrorists and criminals who didn't like to see the appearances of life returning back to Baghdad's streets" were targeting innocent civilians.

The bombs exploded in a predominantly Shiite area, but the site is also the intersection of two major roads, which makes it difficult to characterize the bombings as a straightforward sectarian attack.

The U.S. military announced in a statement that two American soldiers were slain in separate attacks Saturday.

Maliki and other Iraqi officials had spoken enthusiastically about the initial lull in violence that had followed the formal launch of the security plan. In a news conference Saturday, a spokesman for the commander of the effort said attacks had dropped by 80 percent since the security measures began. The news conference was held shortly before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a brief visit to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, where she met with Iraqi leaders and pledged her support for the plan.

On Sunday, Iraqi officials took reporters on a tour to see what they described as successful efforts to return people to newly secured neighborhoods after they had fled their homes fearing for their safety.

U.S. officials have spoken more cautiously than their Iraqi counterparts about the plan's prospects for success. They have said a sudden drop in violence is unrealistic in a country where many enemies are being targeted by security forces of dubious loyalty, skill and strength.

"These terrorists thrive on fear and insecurity," the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said in a statement. "But they will not prevail. Make no mistake; heinous acts such as these will only serve to galvanize Iraqi forces and their coalition partners who are continuing to move forward in securing Baghdad."

On Saturday, the U.S. military also characterized the first few days of the security plan in positive terms, saying in a statement

that security patrols had been doubled in the past week. "Nearly 20,000 security patrols were conducted this week," said Lt. Col. Scott R. Bleichwehl, a military spokesman. "Since the operation started, there has been a reduction in the number of attacks across the Iraqi capital."

Hadi, the travel agent, found another minibus minutes after the bombings and resumed his commute home.

Watching streams of smoke from each of the bombing sites rise into one thick cloud, he leaned toward a colleague sitting next to him.

"I was expecting this," he said. "No one will be able to stop the terrorists in Iraq. I did not believe in this security plan."

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