Baghdad car bomb blast kills 62

BAGHDAD: At least 62 people were killed and 114 wounded Saturday when a car bomb struck the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City, ripping through a massive security crackdown in the Iraqi capital.   

A Sunni woman MP was also kidnapped in north Baghdad along with eight of her bodyguards, a day after Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden vowed the war would go on despite a peace plan launched by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.   

The vast Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of militiamen loyal to Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr, has been a repeated target for Sunni Arab insurgents amid mounting sectarian violence.   

The massive car bomb went off as a police patrol passed through the district's Al-Ula market, which was packed with morning shoppers, an interior ministry official said.   

Witnesses said the bomb was concealed in a pick-up truck loaded with fruit and vegetables and that the driver blew himself up.   

But security officals said initial reports suggested the bomb had been detonated remotely.   

The force of the blast torched nearby market stalls and around 20 vehicles, an AFP photographer witnessed.   

Fearful residents were seen desperately searching through the mangled wreckage for missing loved ones.   

A US military vehicle which attempted to approach the blast scene withdrew in the face of a hail of stones from angry residents.   

Major General Jihad Taher al-Luaibi, head of the interior ministry's anti-explosives unit told state television: "The martyrs were of all sexes and ages -- innocent people. Their bones and flesh were crushed together.   
"The impact of the explosion scattered pieces everywhere, as far as 500 metres (yards) from the scene," the general told state television.   

Stressing that the security forces had asked for new equipment to detect car bombs, he said "if the prime minister is listening, please approve our request because this will save human lives."   

Outside the city's Ibn Nafis hospital, a maimed survivor was carried out of an ambulance on a stretcher as a black-clad woman watched on sobbing.   

Militiamen of Sadr's Mehdi Army threatened to take over the patrolling of the neighbourhood in the face of the continued ability of the fledgling security forces to prevent such deadly attacks.   

"The Iraqi forces are not doing their job properly ... they are not checking cars that are entering the area. If this is the case, we will take the security of the area into our own hands," a Shiite militiaman who gave his name only as Fuad told AFP.   

In a separate roadside bombing in southeast Baghdad, another three people were killed, officials said. Four bodies were also found around the city.   

Taiseer Najeh Awad al-Mashhadani, an MP for the National Concord Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in the Iraqi parliament, was seized in north Baghdad as she returned to the capital from the restive province of Diyala to the northeast, political and security sources said.   

Her abduction came after the Shiite prime minister launched a national reconcilation plan aimed at wooing members of the disenchanted former elite away from the protracted insurgency and back into the political process.   

The violence was a reminder of the precarious security situation in the capital despite a massive security clampdown that has seen tens of thousands of US and government troops patrolling the streets for the past few weeks. 

 Government figures for June recorded at least 1,009 Iraqi dead in insurgent attacks, only slightly down on the 1,055 killed around Iraq in May.