Bombs kill 133 in Baghdad, gunmen storm ministry
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20061123/ts_nm/iraq_dc_26By Ross Colvin and Alastair Macdonald 39 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Six car bombs killed 133 people in a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad on Thursday, one of the bloodiest attacks since the U.S. invasion and likely to inflame sectarian passions in a nation sliding toward civil war.
A further 201 people were wounded, police said, and the Health Minister said the toll could rise. "Many of the dead have been reduced to scattered body parts and are not counted yet," Ali al-Shemari told Reuters.
The blasts, which were followed by a mortar barrage aimed at a nearby Sunni enclave, came at the same time as gunmen mounted a bold daylight raid on the Shi'ite-run Health Ministry.
Six parked vehicles each packed with as much as half a metric ton of explosives devastated streets and a crowded market in the sprawling Sadr City slum in east Baghdad, Major General Jihad al-Jabori of the Interior Ministry told state television. Mortars also landed nearby and residents seized a seventh car they said was driven by a would-be suicide bomber, he added. Bloodied remains lay amid mangled vehicle wrecks. Fierce fires were left blazing after the attacks.