BAGHDAD, Iraq – A bomb hidden in a box of pigeons exploded Friday as shoppers gathered around, tearing through a busy pet and livestock market and littering the blood-soaked pavement with human remains and animal carcasses.
At least 62 people were killed or found dead nationwide, including a U.S. Marine.
The attack at the popular weekly animal market shattered the calm as Baghdad residents strolled past stalls where sellers were peddling birds, dogs, cats, sheep, goats and exotic animals such as snakes and monkeys.
“I went this morning to the animal market to earn some money and to entertain myself. Instead I was hit by the explosion and lost … my pigeons and my mobile phone,” Sajad Abdel-Jabar, an 18-year-old homing pigeon vendor, said from his hospital bed.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, which police and hospital officials said killed 15 people and wounded 66. Suspicion fell on Sunni insurgents because the market sits near a predominantly Shiite neighborhood on the east bank of the Tigris River that divides Baghdad.
It was the latest in a series of attacks on busy commercial targets in the capital as insurgents apparently sought to maximize bloodshed ahead of a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown.
Attacks elsewhere left at least 46 people dead, including 38 bullet-riddled bodies found mostly in Baghdad. The body of a Shiite boxer who had been kidnapped days ago also was found in central Baghdad, with wounds on his neck indicating he had been hanged, police said.
A Marine was killed in fighting in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said, raising the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began to at least 3,070, according to an Associated Press count.
The explosion struck the Souq al-Ghazl at about 10 a.m., one of the busiest times for the animal vendors and an hour before the start of a four-hour vehicle ban that is imposed every Friday to prevent car bombs from striking mosques during weekly Islamic prayers.
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