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Blast in Baghdad Market Kills Dozens
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Hashim said several U.S. soldiers had visited the market about 15 minutes before the explosion. Soldiers routinely patrol the market and buy chicken there, he said. No U.S. troops were wounded in the attack, according to a U.S. military spokesman.
Ali Kadhim, 20, another merchant who witnessed the bombing, said U.S. and Iraqi security forces had set up concrete barriers in the district two days earlier to improve security.
Hurriyah, a sector of the Kadhimiyah district, is one of several areas of the capital where U.S. and Iraqi troops have targeted Shiite militia leaders recently. As a result, the two merchants said, many have fled the area or maintained a low profile.
Hashim, who said he dislikes militiamen, said their departure has made residents vulnerable to attacks. "The Mahdi Army were trying to provide some kind of protection," he said, referring to the militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "They prevented cars from being stopped near markets."
Still, Hashim said, people in Hurriyah had begun to move around more freely and stay out later as security improved. "Six months ago, the situation wasn't good," he said. "Now I would return home at 11 p.m."
U.S. military officials have said the security gains that have heartened Baghdad residents are fragile and reversible, asserting that insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, though weakened, remain capable of large-scale attacks.
"This is a senseless and tragic event," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "What's to gain by terrorizing the population when what 99 percent of the Iraqi people want is peace, stability and security and the opportunity to raise their families and make a living? This is simply an evil act."
Also Tuesday, the police chief in Kut, a city southeast of Baghdad, was killed in a roadside bombing, Iraqi officials said. Col. Salih Mahdi al-Shimari and one of his deputies, 1st Lt. Mohammed Wali, were in a convoy that was hit with an armor-penetrating bomb, according to Hameed Chaati, the director of the city's health center.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Mosul, Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid, 50, an Iraqi state television journalist, was assassinated near his home, colleagues said. Nearly 130 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
