At least 41 people were killed and 68 wounded today when twin car bombs ripped through a busy market of Baghdad's Sadr City slum, mowing down families as they crowded around a popular ice cream parlour, police said.
A third car bomb was discovered and was being defused, the police said.
After the explosions, angry residents threw stones and empty bottles at Iraqi soldiers and accused them of failing to protect people in Sadr City, a sprawling, largely Shia slum.
The attacks followed suicide bombings last week in which at least 150 people died in just two days, stirring fears that Iraq could descend into a new spiral of sectarian conflict.
Many of last week's victims were Shia pilgrims from Iran. Sadr City is home to more than two million of Baghdad's poorest people and a stronghold of support for anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Body parts lay scattered around the smoking wreck of a car after the blasts, while the wounded were piled into private cars, minibuses and on the back of a pick-up truck and rushed to hospital. Police vehicles cleared a way for the convoy.
The nearby shops set ablaze by one of the explosions included the popular Aziz al-Kaabi ice cream shop, which residents said is usually crowded with families in the late afternoon, the time the bombs went off.
The second car bomb appeared to have exploded around 60 metres away near a part of the market specialising in birds and pets.
The sectarian violence ignited by the 2003 US-led invasion has receded sharply over the past year but insurgents, including Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda, continue to carry out frequent suicide and car bombings.
Last week's series of powerful explosions in Diyala and Baghdad, including at a revered Shia shrine, stirred fears that Iraq could slide back into broader conflict if Shia gunmen launch a wave of reprisal killings against Sunnis.
The government has pointed the finger at al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party over the attacks. It has said its security forces managed last Thursday to arrest the leader of an al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, the Islamic State of Iraq.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said yesterday that the arrest of the man, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, could provoke revenge attacks.
Reuters